


And When the Earth Shall Claim Your Limbs

by wordswithout



Series: Battle of Eagles [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: M/M, ffdotnet cross-post, the one the only, warning this is 216000 words of Maltair angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1529135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswithout/pseuds/wordswithout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an attack on their village leaves them orphaned and desperate, Malik and Kadar become Al Mualim's newest pupils. Altair, the master's star novice, is less than thrilled, but all Malik cares about is keeping his little brother safe...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So much of this was written with the help of Nemonus (skywalker05 on ffdotnet) - fight choreography, beta-reading, the invention of Kleeve.
> 
> This is a very-mildly-updated version of And When the Earth...typos and minor style changes only. A new chapter will be thrown up every couple days (or whenever I remember); the full thing is posted on ffdotnet if you're impatient. 
> 
> Within this monster you will find: violence, language, some fanservice, some religious themes, some divergence from canon [note that most was written pre-Revelations and staunchly ignores Bowdenverse because ew], some het, some homo, if I remember right there are like at least two blowjobs. Etc.
> 
> Opening quote is from Khalil Gibran's "On Death". This fic was inspired by daltucia's "Reflection" on deviantart, which shows you how old it is. The sequel is still on-going on the other site and will also be here eventually.
> 
> Fanart can be found on my ffdotnet page! 
> 
> :3

 

_"Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor.  
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?"_

_**Prologue: Honor Guard** _

It is, Malik A-Sayf knows, an honor to be chosen to guard the flocks. An honor, and a responsibility, and something he can be trusted with now that he is ten. Malik has been ten for three whole days, and is still flush with the pride of being an adult (more or less).

His father, not usually one for emotion, had clasped him to his chest and recited a verse from the Quran which spoke of strength and honor and the love of a parent for his sons. His mother had bought him new robes and new shoes, had made him a spicy stew that she knew he loved. His little brother, Kadar, had stared after him in naked, honest awe.

Malik lowers himself to the ground, yearning to lean back against the grass and sleep through the brutal Syrian summer heat. He is surrounded by brown-green fields. In the distance there are the mountains; closer by, there are the sheep. Tucked away in the nearest valley is the village. And currently trudging up the hill Malik rests on is—

"Kadar?" Instantly, Malik sits up straighter. It is an honor to watch the sheep, especially all by himself. Only little boys would want to nap instead of fulfilling their duty. Kadar would _definitely_   fall asleep and let the sheep wander off the nearest cliff. Sheep aren't very bright, but—Malik decides now—it takes a wise person with years of experience to understand how to manage an entire flock on his own. Someone who is ten, for instance.

Malik rises to his feet to meet his brother, noting that the younger boy is lugging a small basket with both hands. "Lunch?" he calls out, hopefully. Even ten year old almost-adults need to eat.

"Mother made it for you," Kadar confirms, sounding out of breath but pleased. His brown hair, lighter than Malik's black and more tousled, spills across his eyes, which are the exact dark shade and shape as those of his older brother. "I brought it all the way here an' I didn't spill or anything."

Malik gives his brother a tolerant smile. Kadar is just a little kid, only six, but he's eager to please and doesn't usually get in the way.

"So…" Kadar plunks down, staring in an obvious way at the basket. His shoes, Malik notes, are already filthy: _someone's been playing by the stream even though I told him not to._ "Are you having fun?"

Malik sits down as well, and opens the basket. Kadar's ravenous expression as he pulls out a loaf of bread makes him smile, so he breaks off a chunk and hands it to him. His brother beams and crams half of it in his mouth in one go.

"Chew slower," Malik orders.

"Mmph." Kadar swallows. "Well? Are you? Is it exciting?"

Malik considers. So far, shepherding has consisted of herding the sheep to the right field, sitting around to make sure the sheep don't wander into the wrong field, and then just plain sitting around. But Kadar is looking at him so eagerly…

"I saw a snake," he says solemnly. This is true. "It was black and fat and hissed at me." This is mostly true. "I smushed its head in with my stick." This did not actually happen, but Kadar's eyes go huge with amazement, and it isn't really a _lie_. Just a…a not-truth. There _was_ a snake.

"A whole snake?" Kadar asks. "How big?"

"Huge. It might've eaten one of the sheep if I wasn't there to protect it."

"Wow." Kadar leans back with a heavy sigh. "I can't wait 'till I get to watch the herd. I'll fight off snakes, and—and—wolves—"

"Mm." Malik grins down at his younger brother. "And the village will be so proud of you they'll put up a statue and you'll be famous."

"An' I'll be rich and important. I'll marry like six wives!"

"Allah only lets you have four," Malik reminds him. Kadar is not deterred.

"Then you can have the other two. An' I'll build a palace for Mother and Father, an' you can live there too, and…"

Malik throws another hunk of bread at him. "First you have to fight off the wolves."

"I will!" Kadar, inspired, leaps to his feet and lunges at imaginary enemies. Malik watches him and shakes his head.

Children.

_-i-_

Eventually Kadar tires himself out and begins the trudge back to the village, where no doubt their mother will scold him for taking too long. It's later in the day, and quiet…now there's no one for Malik to talk to but the sheep.

He shivers a bit. Being a shepherd is lonely. Longing hits him, sudden and sharp: until now he's always helped his father in the fields, and that was never lonely. His father's quiet presence was always comforting, no matter how hard the work. And if he grew too tired or too bored, he could just run back to the house.

But Malik is a shepherd now. He's a man, not a child, and men (he has been told) have duties to the world.

_You are an older brother now. You must never forget your responsibilities as the eldest._

Strange, how used he's become to Kadar. Malik, sitting cross-legged in the grass, bored now that the novelty of shepherding has worn off, frowns in thought as he considers his younger brother. It'd been forever ago, but he can still remember being four and bewildered, forbidden from entering his own house, forced to stand outside with his father and some other men while village women darted in and out with bloody hands.

"Allah favors you," the men had told his father. "Two sons. A great honor. They'll be your pride in life."

Malik remembers how his father said nothing, just crossed his arms and looked pleased; he remembers wondering at that, at how his father let an opportunity to brag pass quietly by. He remembers being proud, in some strange way. Most other men would have crowed with smug joy. _Sayyid_ Baqir, for instance, the village loudmouth, who was said to have beaten his wife when she bore him a third daughter. _He'd_ be bragging about sons until he died of old age.

 _Maybe_ , Malik thinks now, _that's why Allah never gave him any._

Still, there'd been a lot that four-year-old Malik hadn't understood at the time. Why his mother grew so big her robes grew tight, and then suddenly shrank again. Why one of the villagers knelt down in front of him, during that confusing day, and told him seriously that, "You should be grateful for what your family has been given. Everything will change for you now."

Malik remembers being finally led into the house by his father, being shown the squirming, whining bundle in his mother's arms. His father had taken that bundle and, almost solemnly, given it—him—to Malik. Malik had held his little brother, startled at how light he was, as his parents exchanged tired smiles.

"Malik," his father had said. He spoke gravely, and in Malik's arms the baby stared upwards and grew silent. "This is your younger brother. You must never forget that. He is your responsibility. As the older son, it is your job to help keep him safe. This is your duty. Allah Himself has willed it so."

Malik watched the baby—his brother? What did that mean?—and felt a tingle down his spine. "My brother," he whispered. The words, though he did not understand them, were strong.

"What two brothers have, no one else can understand," his father continued. "And no one can take it away. You must always remember that bond. You'll need to be strong for him. Sometimes it will be hard."

Hard? At four, Malik didn't have much of a concept of _hard_. For no reason at all, the Older Brother felt scared, and his father must have noticed for his tone softened and he smiled. "Don't worry. I know you are strong enough. Protect Kadar and Allah will bless you, all your life."

Malik wasn't sure what his father meant at four, and he still isn't sure at ten. But these are his responsibilities…surely protecting a younger brother is no harder than protecting a flock of sheep. Even if the younger brother _is_ only six. Malik the shepherd stares out after his flock.

_-i-_

He returns to the village that evening, fresh with the knowledge that the sheep are safe, due entirely to his wisdom. His father will be so proud. But as he starts down the dirt path that leads from the sheep pen to his home, he notices Kadar running towards him. There's a spurt of disappointment, and since Malik rarely bothers to lie to himself he acknowledges the let-down. It should be his father coming down the path, to shower his eldest with quiet approval.

Then again, Kadar isn't a bad second choice. He'll be just as proud. Just not as quiet.

" _Ahki,_ are the sheep safe? Did you see any more snakes? Were there wolves? Some men from the village are eating with us tonight so Mother says you hafta wash up careful before you come inside. Did the wolves get the sheep? I bet you fought them off, right, you definitely kept them all away. And Mother told me to make sure you used the well water for washing and not for spilling on the ground 'cause that's what boys usually do 'cause they hate washing up but you're not really a boy anymore are you? I wanna come visit you again tomorrow, Brother, 'cause you get to fight with wolves."

Kadar says this all very fast. Malik pauses.

"Village men are over again?" he asks as the two brothers fall into step together. The fading sun casts long shadows, and a slight breeze catches at the worn hems of their tunics. They leave light footprints, scuffing the sand as they walk.

Their shadows merge together and pull apart. Again and again, they are attached.

"Yah," Kadar says. " _Sayyid_ Hamid. And _Sayyid_ Maram and his nephew."

"I wonder what they want."

"Just to talk to Father, I guess." Kadar wrinkles his nose. "Oh, and _Sayyid_ Baqir is here again. Why does he hafta come over so much, Malik?"

Malik shrugs. "'Because Father still lets him. Khalil told me last week that his father won't even invite Baqir inside anymore, because he's arrogant and lies to everyone's face."

"He should stay at home," Kadar grumbles, folding his arms across his bony chest. "Every time he comes over he asks for lots of food and doesn't even thank Mother when she brings it. And he smokes a lot, makes me cough."

"He's afraid to eat at his house," Malik says. "He thinks his wife is gonna…gonna send him to his virgins early."

"Oh." The younger boy is silent a moment. "What does that mean?"

Malik shrugs. "I dunno. Heard Mother and Father talking."

(And technically he hadn't been meant to hear that conversation, but he'd been right there, and surely it wasn't disobeying your parents to listen after being told not to if you just happened to be lingering outside the front door while your parents talked inside?

Even if you _had_ been told to go to the stream and stay there a while.)

"I think it involves poison," Malik offers after a moment. "He's afraid to eat his wife's food."

"'Cause it'll turn him into a virgin?" Kadar frowns. "Malik, what's a virgin?"

 _This_ their father has explained to Malik, in great detail. The whole process sounds rather grim, and in Malik's personal opinion not very necessary. Anyway, it's nothing for Kadar to know.

"There's the house," he says, to change the subject. "Race you."

"You're gonna win," Kadar groans, but he looks thrilled nonetheless. "I can't ever beat you, Brother."

"Nope," says Malik, and takes off running.

_-i-_

Because there are guests and because he is a man, Malik resists splashing his brother at the well behind their house. The small, three-room structure sits just far enough away from the village itself to need a closer water source, and a running well is a sign of good fortune. But the village is small, and the houses scattered; its people are used to long distances, and so it isn't rare to find guests over for dinner at the A-Sayf household. Men will travel miles for conversation, Malik's father often says.

(It's more than conversation, though. There isn't a villager around who hasn't asked his father for advice at least once. Even _Sayyid_ Murtada, the village's richest man, has been by, and Murtada has three wives and five horses! Malik had been there to witness the man complain about the son who insisted on marrying some local girl he was in love with, rather than the girl chosen by his parents. He'd never actually asked a question, and Malik's father had mused on a solution without ever actually naming it as such…

But a week later Murtada announced his son's marriage, and suddenly the A-Sayf herd of sheep seemed several heads thicker than before.)

Still, such a bother that there have to be guests tonight of all nights. Now Malik will have to be respectful, and silent, and most importantly not around. He and Kadar will be paraded past the guests as visual bragging rights for their father, and then sent into another room to eat with their mother. Malik itches to stay in the main room, to announce to his father and the others his success at shepherding. He won't be loud, or arrogant. He will simply sit down amongst the men, as if it were any other day, and his strength will show in his newly calloused hands.

And should the others ask him of his day—what of the sheep? they will ask. What of the flock?—then he will smile, and shrug, and admit that he does not mean to brag, but all the animals are alive and a great many snakes came to harm. His father will give him that slight, warm smile that means everything, and they will all nod their heads knowingly, faced as they all are with the work of men.

"Malik, come on." Kadar stands by the doorway, eager to slip inside but not so eager that he would leave his brother behind. "I'm hungry."

"I'm coming," Malik sighs. How frustrating it is to be ten and yet a child!

They go inside, entering the front room, where their father and the guests are sitting cross-legged on cushions around plates and dishes, dinner in the process of being brought out. Their father smiles when he sees them, a smile half-hidden by his beard.

"There they are," he says, eyes twinkling. "You two are late."

Malik murmurs an apology, which is drowned out by Kadar's protesting, "But there were wolves!" The older brother grabs the younger brother by the wrist and pulls him into the proper bow, mouthing the proper, respectful greetings for the villagers. Then he drags Kadar into the second room, where their mother is bent over the fireplace.

She turns around when she hears them come in. Her robes are long and heavy, and sweat beads her face. A few stray hairs are plastered to her forehead, despite how tightly her brown headscarf is tied. She smiles.

"There you two are. I send one brother to find the other brother and they both end up lost."

"Sorry, Mother." Malik goes over to her, taking the heavy pot off the flames before she can grab it. His tired arms protest, but he ignores them and hoists the pot higher. "Let me take this in for you."

"So helpful," his mother says. "Why is it you never make such offers when there's no one here but your father and I?" She glances over her shoulder at Kadar, who's yawning from his stance against the wall. "That tunic is filthy. Make sure you wear your other one tomorrow."

Kadar bobs his head. "I'm hungry."

"Of course." She turns back to Malik. "Take that to the next room," she says to him. "Then come back in and we'll eat. Then bed."

Malik considers the pot in his hands, almost but not quite pouting. His mother notices his hesitation and sighs.

"What is wrong, exactly?" she asks.

"Nothing," he says, and then adds slowly, "I'm just tired from herding all those sheep…"

"Yes, I know. My son is almost a man already." Malik is alarmed to see his mother's eyes misting over. "Ah, just an infant yesterday and now you're so strong and dependable. Both my sons are growing fast. Soon they'll be married and have their own children. Then will they even remember their mother?"

"I'm going to take the pot in now," he says hastily. This is not exactly the type of admiration he's been looking for.

As he hurries back into the front room the conversation he's walked into dies. The village men all glance in his direction, and he braces himself for the usual round of compliments, meant for his father's sake rather than his own. Sure enough…

"Nice to see your boy still helping his mother," the man on his right says in a gravely voice. "My own sons are too lazy to offer, even."

An older man across the circle shakes his head. "Don't be so harsh on them," he says softly. His beard is almost completely white and he strokes it when he talks. "Just having sons is a blessing, Hamid."

A voiceless murmur of agreement spreads through the group, half out of pity. Maram's wife never bore any children, and he could never afford to take another; he'd been told to divorce her and marry someone more fruitful, but refused. Malik asked his mother once why Maram was willing to stay without heirs for the sake of his wife, but all she would say was that his marriage hadn't been arranged. Malik still isn't sure what she'd meant.

Hamid _tsks_. "You'll be given that blessing one of these days," he says. "Soon you'll have a whole brood of children, running you ragged."

"Not me," Maram says with a laugh. "I'm too old. If Allah meant to give me children He would have done so twenty years ago." He shifts position on his cushion. "Anyway, I have Hassan here," he adds, and the scruffy teenager sitting beside him flushes and squirms. "He's been just as much of a son. If I'd had my own I couldn't have afforded to take him in, eh?"

"Allah is wise," Hamid agrees. "After all, He gave our gracious host two obedient children, and no one deserves them more."

Malik wants to protest—he _isn't_ a child—but keeps his mouth shut. It isn't his place to speak, even if they _are_ talking about him. He takes his time ladling out broth from the pot, giving each man a carefully measured portion. Once he's done he'll have to go back and eat with his mother and brother, like a child or a girl.

Maram reaches over and takes his bowl with a sigh and a nod of gratitude. But when Malik hands the bowl to the man on his right, he gets only an insincere smile.

"You're too old for women's work," _Sayyid_ Baqir says. His eyes are black and narrow, his chin darkened with stubble. "Nine-year-olds should act more like men."

"I'm ten," Malik mumbles. Everything out of Baqir's mouth is a backhanded compliment. _Why does Father keep letting him in?_

"Hah? Then my point is even stronger." Baqir leans back, eyeing Malik curiously. "Ten years old? Almost ready to get married!" The other men echo his chortles with strained laughter of their own.

"Not quite yet," says Malik's father. "I think we'll wait a few years."

Not for the first time, Malik is both impressed by and proud of his father. The man sits tall in his robes, his brown beard adding a sense of strength to his face. When he speaks, no matter what he speaks, the room falls silent.

This, Malik knows, is his heritage. Someday he will be expected to be just as strong, just as brave, just as wise. The thought is a scary one: his father's role is so great. How can Malik expect to fill it, when he struggles just to keep Kadar entertained?

Head cloudy with admiration, he straightens and moves for the door. But before he can leave the circle of men his father speaks, in his smooth, deep voice: "Sit and stay with us a while, my son. Have something to eat."

And this is so unexpected Malik's mouth drops open. To be invited to eat with his father-! He stares for so long, stunned, that his father laughs into his beard. " _Sit_ , Malik."

And Malik, dazed and delighted and already picturing how he will describe his victory to Kadar, stumbles over to the nearest pillow and folds shaking legs underneath him. The village men murmur fresh greetings, less condescending this time than a few moments ago: he is one of them, finally. An adult, with all the responsibilities and all the burdens.

Not even Baqir's brown-toothed sneer can ruin the euphoria. "Joining us, are you? So you're not such a little boy."

"Malik watched the flocks today," his father says, and the rest of the men nod. Malik glows. The conversation turns to other matters, the men chatting as they eat (Baqir in particular keeps talking with his mouth full). Malik stays quiet, watching, too excited to focus on his food. He's lived in this house all his life, he's sat in the front room countless times, and yet now it seems changed. The dirt walls, the faded pillows, the small window: nothing has changed, but everything is so _new_. There's a general shuffle of bowls and platters, and then _Sayyid_ Maram leans back with a heavy sigh.

"A good meal," he says. His nephew nods.

"Your wife knows how to cook," Baqir agrees, somehow turning compliment into complaint. "Everything mine makes tastes like mud. What's the use of a woman who can't even cook?"

"There are other uses," Hamid says, and grins. Malik, after a thoughtful moment, grins back.

"Bah," says Baqir. "She isn't so good at _that_ , either."

"Always you complain about your wife. Are our lives so boring that there is nothing else to talk about?"

"So, talk," Baqir starts to say, but his nastiness is buried by Malik's father, who shakes his head.

"There is nothing wrong with boring lives," he says. "We're fortunate to have them." The rest of the men grow quiet; Malik looks at his father, sensing the somber change in mood. "We should be grateful that no excitement has come to this village."

"It's getting bad," Hamid says, slowly. "More and more of those bastards on the roads every day."

Malik, despite the serious words, is distracted by mild awe. Hamid, a merchant, travels to larger villages regularly for merchandise. He even goes to the great city Damascus on occasion: a long journey, and a city beyond imagination. Malik, on the other hand, has been to a neighboring village only once, so long ago that he barely remembers the trip. In all likelihood he will never go far from his home. He will certainly never see a city as immense as Damascus, though sometimes at night he lies awake, filled with questions, with strange longings for lands he'll never know.

"That's why my wife stays in the house," Baqir is saying when Malik submerges from his thoughts again. "You know what they do when they see our women."

"But the Templars haven't reached this far," Hassan protests. "Our roads are safe."

"I heard a village three hours away was attacked," his uncle says. "These are dangerous times. Caution is a good thing to have."

Malik frowns to himself. _Templars_. He isn't sure who they are, exactly, or why they're here—Christian soldiers, his mother said once, out to claim Muslim lands for their faraway king. Violent men, who for years now have roamed the countryside, burning and killing as they will. Malik is too young to remember the last great battle (and praise be to Allah for that, his mother said), which left the Holy City of Jerusalem near ruin but still in the hands of the Faithful. Not that he will ever see Jerusalem, either…

But though that battle left both sides too weak for outright conflict, the Templars did not leave. Malik has grown up with the threat of bored, lost Templar soldiers, eager to prey on travelers and defenseless women out alone.

"Why are they attacking villages?" he asks now. "I thought there weren't many of them left."

"More're coming," Hamid says. "Their king is getting ready for another war. He wants Jerusalem real badly, the louse."

"It isn't just the king," Maram says. "They think their god told them to take our lands."

"Bah," Baqir grunts again. "What god? They worship the Devil."

Hassan nods, eagerly. "They're all cowards and infidels," he says. "If they want another war we should give it to them. Allah will wipe all of them out, and then we won't have to worry about their soulless bandits blocking the roads."

"If war comes, it won't just come to Jerusalem." Malik's father looks stern. "The violence will spread everywhere. Even here. We should hope for peace. If it is Allah's will, the bloodshed will pass us by and fade away."

"But they're the enemy…! It would be honorable to spill their blood!"

"Careful, nephew," Maram scolds, but gently. "Or it will be your blood that's spilled. No, our host is right. No good can come out of another battle in Jerusalem." The old man speaks with quiet confidence, and Malik finds himself nodding along in agreement. "Jerusalem will always be ours, _Inshallah_. What's best for our village is to keep out of the mess. The Christians will leave eventually. They have their own lands."

He shrugs. "They are infidels, but not madmen. When they realize they will never steal the Holy City, they will go. Meanwhile our families will be safe if we can avoid the fray."

"Unless they attack our village," Baqir says with the smallest of sneers. Malik, angered, has to look down at the bowl in his lap to keep his expression from being seen. Surely saying such evil invites it in!

But his father is unruffled. "They won't. This place is too remote, and too poor. What would they gain by attacking here? We have no riches to entice their greed."

"Men have killed for less."

"We are safe here. The Prophet, peace upon Him, will not betray His faithful."

Baqir falls silent, not bothering to hide his glower. Malik feels proud all over again. His father is right—his father is always right. There is no reason to fear. The conversation twists away to other things, lasting long into the night; he is half-asleep by the time the last of the guests leaves. He drags himself on legs made weary by the long day to the back room, where his brother is already sleeping on his mat. The next day will start at dawn, and Malik knows that, but still he lies awake for what feels like hours, somehow too drained for sleep. He stares into the darkness, and considers the business of being a man.

As finally he slides into slumber, Malik A-Sayf decides that his is a blessed life, an honored one he is grateful to own.


	2. Part One Chapter One: Night and the Mounted Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Malik uses the word Templar interchangeably with the word Crusader because it's basically all he knows. Templars are the bad guys with red crosses who attack villages. Later on he'll learn that Christian =/= Crusader =/= Templar, and much later on he'll begin to grasp the idea that not all Knights Templar are Future-Abstergo-Employee-Templars. Speak Against the Sun clarifies that last bit since this story doesn't reach so far into the Apple-Templar-mysticism timeline.

 

 

 

  
_**Night and the Mounted Men** _

The heat presses Malik to the ground. He sits with his back against a rock, surrounded on all sides by sheep, and tries not to feel the strength of the sun against his shoulders. Shepherding is still kind of exciting—but it was more exciting a month ago, when it was new. Now it's becoming a thing dangerously close to drudgery.

And that isn't right! He's a farmer's son. His life lies out in front of him, and it is the same life his father had. His father, who is so wise and so content. His father, who everyone says has been blessed by Allah. How can Malik be bored by the world that he has always known, the world that his father has formed for him? What else _is_ there? What else could he possibly want?

But he sits here now, at the top of a hill, staring at the path that leads back towards the village, and he is doing a man's job, and he is bored. And thirsty. And he wants to—to—

To what?

"Damascus," he says aloud. "I want to go there." _Sayyid_ Hamid, the merchant, had been at dinner again yesterday, his last before setting out on a month-long trip to the far-away city. At Malik's shy request Hamid had done his best to describe Damascus and its beauty (tall, sand-colored buildings rising out of roads caked with white stone), but finally he'd given up, with an embarrassed shrug. No words to describe a city where thousands swam together, no words to describe such a sea.

There are three roads in Malik's village, and he knows all the people who travel them. He recognizes every house. Murtada the rich man is as familiar to him as the blind beggar man who sits by the mosque and sings after evening prayer. Only ten—only just a man—and he knows it all, already.

"In Damascus," Hamid had said, "There are great mosques. You think that little shed we have is anything? Hah! Wait 'till you've seen a proper minaret tower. They scratch at the sky!"

_That_ is what Malik wants: sky-scratching towers. It shouldn't even be possible, but it is, and he wants to convince himself that such marvels exist. Instead he has evidence only of sheep. His is a good life, he knows, for hadn't he decided as much last month? He is obedient towards the duties of grown men. He knows what is expected of him, and he does not falter at those tasks. But Malik is ten now, and still the world around him has not changed.

He stares at the closest sheep. It stares back.

"Where's Kadar with lunch?" he asks it. "I'm gonna start bringing my own. He's always late." The sheep does not seem interested, but Malik isn't deterred. Even at ten he ends up ignored by most other adults, and the ones who do bother talking to him are usually trying to arrange his marriage.

Marriage. Ugh.

"I know I have to get married," he informs the sheep, "but then I'll have to have kids. And then…" _And then what_ dies unspoken on his tongue. And then what? And then he'll be like his father—if he's fortunate—and his own children will turn into men, and he'll never have _gone_ or _seen_ or _done_.

"I'm not a child anymore," he whispers. "And I'm glad. But no one ever told me being a man would be so _similar_ all the time. I mean, Kadar can goof off and no one gets mad at him…" He sighs. "But Kadar's just a child. He doesn't have to worry about stuff like us adults do. Plus, even when he's ten I'll still have to watch out for him. He's so stupid sometimes. Like, last week he fell into a stream. I don't even know where he _found_ a stream deep enough in this heat, but he found it and fell in. Came back soaking wet, Mother was really upset."

Malik tilts his head, considering. "I don't mind watching him, though," he says. "Older brothers should be expected to keep little brothers safe, 'specially since I've only got the one. Father always says that, and he's always right."

The sheep _baas_ an answer and wanders away, back down the hill. Malik shrugs. A moment later there's a thin shriek and he is bolting, leaving deep footprints in the dirt before he remembers getting to his feet. The air is heavy and sweat pricks at his brow, but he is aware only of the rapid beat of his pulse as he runs. Kadar is at the foot of the hill, flustered and indignant; there's a small basket on the ground before him, and its contents are being methodically chewed by something white and fluffy.

Malik skids to a stop. Kadar spots him and bellows, "It nearly knocked me _over_! And it's eating your lunch."

"Did you get attacked by a sheep?"

"I threw a rock at it but it wouldn't _go_."

"I thought you were being attacked by a Templar or something!"

"Mother says that if you see a Templar you're suppos'ta run right home," Kadar says. "Not fight him."

"I wasn't gonna fight him. I was just gonna get you first."

"Wouldn't you have to fight him to get me?"

Malik grins. "You'd probably have already killed him with your deadly rock throwing."

"Nuh uh. You'd have to kill him, Brother. You're ten so you prob'ly could." Kadar makes a face at the offending sheep as it finally drifts away. "Now what? That was both of our lunches an' Mother will get mad if we tell her."

"Mad at the sheep, maybe." Malik gives his brother a gentle push up the hill. "Keep me company for a while, then I'll walk back with you a little early and we'll see if there's anything left over. Ok?"

"Ok." Kadar ambles along, chattering about sheep and rocks and lunch-stealing Templars. Malik is only half-listening; he really _is_ hungry, but his meal is currently being digested by livestock. Stupid, greedy sheep.

"—plars, right, Brother?"

Malik blinks, looks down at Kadar. "What?"

"Our village doesn't have Templars. Right?" Kadar spots the rock Malik was reclining against earlier and plops himself next to it. He saves the rock itself for his older brother, though, and Malik feels rather important as he settles himself down. "I heard Father talking to _Sayyid_ Baqir last night."

Malik reaches out and cuffs his brother against the side of his head, lightly. "You weren't supposed to be listening to that."

Kadar is undaunted. "But I wanted to know what you were talking about. You're so lucky that you get to eat with Father now." He hesitates. "So, there's no Templars, right?"

"Not around here."

"Oh. 'Cause Baqir was saying how he saw them less than an hour away…"

"Why would Baqir know what was going on an hour away? He never leaves that ugly house of his except to bother Father with more complaints."

"He said he was looking for more land for his sheep." Kadar fiddles with the edge of his tunic—the frayed edge, Malik notes, which means he's still wearing his old, raggedy shirt. "He saw a bunch of heathen soldiers marching towards him so he hid behind a rock. They smelled bad."

"Baqir just likes to talk. He probably saw some old drunk staggering along and scared himself." Malik rolls his eyes. "I wasn't listening to him at all last night. And if you're gonna eavesdrop, you should pick someone worth eavesdropping on."

Kadar nods solemnly. "I'll remember that." He yawns. "You're so smart, Brother. When I get to eat with Father I want to be…to be that smart too…"

"Don't worry about Templars," the older brother says, even as Kadar curls himself up and falls into a doze beside the rock. "I won't let even a thousand soldiers get to you."

There is an answering _baa_ from somewhere behind him, but Malik has had his fill of sheep.

_-i-_

Hunger makes Malik irritable as he leads brother and livestock back towards home. The sun hangs low in the sky, casting odd shadows. The thought of dinner propels him forward, but he's worn out from the long day and and the long walk. His feet drag in the dirt. Behind him, Kadar is quiet for once, lost in his own fatigue. Finally the sheep enclosure comes into view, and Malik begins to walk faster.

"Tell Mother I'm coming," he tells his brother. "I just have to make sure the sheep are safe." Kadar bobs his head and heads off.

It doesn't normally take too long to secure the herd at the end of the day, but even so Malik rushes the job: hunger makes him sloppy, but he's too grumpy right now to care. He pulls the fence door to the enclosure shut, not bothering with his usual check to make sure the ancient wood is steady. A quick count to make sure all the sheep are there and he's half-running, stomach rumbling at the thought of warm bread.

Kadar is waiting for him, lingering by the front door with his arms crossed and his face pushed into a confused pout. Malik is hungry enough that he almost misses his brother's frown.

"Well? Go inside," he says impatiently. "You're blocking the door—"

"No one's in there," Kadar announces. "I checked each room. An' there's no dinner, either."

"What do you mean, no one's in there? Where else would they be?" Malik pushes past and pokes his head inside. The front room is dark, and empty, bizarrely quiet. So are the other rooms, he sees a moment later. Shadows linger in the corners, undisturbed. Kadar was right: their parents aren't home.

"Maybe they went into town," he says, loudly. The silence is strange, and unnerving. "Mother might've needed to buy something for dinner." He nods, already half-convinced of his own guess. Why not? It wouldn't be the first time some crucial ingredient was missing from the shelves. Normally he'd be sent to fetch it, or Kadar, but…

"We were both up with the sheep," he says. "So Mother had to go herself, and Father went with her. They weren't expecting me to come back so early anyway." He turns, triumphant, to face Kadar, who is lingering in the doorway. "Stop worrying, they'll be back soon."

His brother nods, and his worried expression lifts as if by magic to be replaced with contented trust. "How soon?"

"I dunno. The market isn't that far." Malik looks around, restless. His explanation fits, and it's certainly reassured his brother, but for some reason he still isn't at ease. There's something that's just not…

"The floor's dirty," Kadar says, his child's voice cutting through the unnatural gloom. "I guess there were villagers over again today."

"Probably." Malik stares at the floor. It's reamed with heavy, black footprints. Someone has tracked in a lot of dirt from outside, too. Strange that his mother hadn't immediately swept it all up…

"Kadar," he says suddenly, because the house is too dark and too still, "Let's go find them. They must've left recently, so we should catch up to them and help them carry what they buy."

"But I'm tired," Kadar whines. He looks shiftily at his brother. "Can't you go? I'll wait here."

And for a minute the idea makes sense—Malik is the faster one, it'll be easier for him to catch up to their parents alone. It isn't as though there's any reason why the two of them have to stay together. It isn't as though there's anything wrong.

Malik looks at the smudged floor and feels a cramping in his gut. "We're both going," he says. He can't keep his voice entirely even, so instead he tries to make it stern. "You're almost seven, not a lazy little boy. Sons should, should…" He deepens his voice, trying for their father's firm and gentle wisdom. "Sons should honor their parents. That is their responsibility. Allah designed the world so that everyone must help each other."

Truthfully, Malik does not sound much like his father; he sounds like a ten year old struggling with big words. But it's enough for Kadar, who stares up at him in wonder, and Malik ends up with a bit of a strut to his walk as he heads for the door. His obedient brother follows him out.

They walk in silence to the village proper, which is some distance away and hidden by hills. Malik grips Kadar by the wrist, pulling him along in burgeoning anxiety, and the younger boy does not complain. The wind picks up as they draw closer, carrying with it faint cries and yells.

They round the last curve, and face fire.

The village nestled into the valley before them is burning, the licking flames obscuring the horizon line. The air is thick with smoke and terror and a horrible, sick-sweet smell that seems to somehow bear a greasy weight. Almost every building within eyesight is alight, and those few that aren't yet have had their windows smashed and their doors caved in. It is hellishly hot, almost too hot to breathe.

Ice freezes Malik in place. His limbs heavy as stone, he stares wildly at the destruction before him. A strangled groan gets caught in his throat. Kadar clutches at his tunic, whimpering in bewilderment.

The village at the foot of the hill is burning. The—the _people_ are burning! Because there are people down there, terrified villagers, most of whom Malik could probably recognize if he could only _focus_ long enough. Screaming people, running in all directions. Except that some of them aren't running. Some of them are lying in mangled heaps in the road, or half-hanging out of broken doorways. The ground is drenched, Malik realizes with another smothered moan: drenched in blood, from one house to the next. Beside him, Kadar whimpers again, and he has an irrational impulse to cover his brother's eyes, to shield him from the nightmare, the death and screams.

But he doesn't move. He _can't_ move. He is locked in place by the weight of that strange, greasy smell.

Kadar tugs on his tunic, crying openly now. "Malik, let's go. Let's go home. Please, Malik, I want to go."

"No one else is leaving," Malik says faintly. It's true: the villagers are scrambling in every direction to escape the flames, but none of them are making it past the outer buildings. Only then does Malik notice that not everyone below is running aimlessly...some are chasing, and some are being chased. Through the smoke he sees unfamiliar men in dirty uniforms, baring swords and roaring with laughter loud enough to rival the crackling of the flames. There are even a few on horseback, ringing the village and skirting the fires.

_No one can leave_ , Malik realizes. _They're being trapped inside._

_Why…?_

There is the crush of hooves on earth, and a snarling laugh in some fermented tone; Malik turns his head to see a pale, beardless man riding up the path towards them. The man wears long, white robes, smudged grey by dirt. There is a red cross painted on the front of his clothing, on the armor of his horse.

His horse! Malik has seen _Sayyid_ Murtada's horses, he has even sat atop Hamid's ancient beast, but never has he faced a creature like this. It seems as much a demon as a horse, pure black and snorting as it runs. Its rider is sneering—Kadar screams, and Malik realizes that the man is brandishing a sword as he charges in their direction.

The ice shatters. The bonds break. Malik grabs his brother by the arm and runs.

_-i-_

Into the smoke. Into the chaos. Into a world where people shriek and fall and burn alive. Malik's only thought is to reach the other side of the village, to reach Murtada's grand, two-story house. Murtada is rich, and, and powerful, and—and they'll be _safe_ with him…!

A man bumps into Kadar, trips, curses and keeps going. Malik turns and tries to yank his brother back to his feet. "Get up!" he cries. The demon-rider lost them in the smoke, but there are other soldiers everywhere, smashing everything from doors to skulls. "Get up! We can't stay here!"

But Kadar is wailing, eyes fixed at a house that Malik recognizes with a start. It's _Sayyid_ Baqir's tiny hovel, and it's on fire along with everything else, and there's a man sprawled in front of it, lying face-down in the redbrown dirt. Malik inches closer, and tastes vomit at the back of his throat: Baqir doesn't have any _arms_.

Kadar is still bawling. Malik stares in gross fascination at the gushing stumps. There is a beguiling emptiness where the limbs should be, and somehow he can _see_ the hollow missing… Someone inside the burning house cries out, though it's hardly distinguishable from all the other cries. Malik drags his eyes away from Baqir in time to see a woman dart past the gaping doorway. He flinches, and even Kadar is shocked enough to stop crying—the woman was entirely naked.

She is pursued by a shadow. There's another cry, a grunt, the sound of something breaking. A second later a soldier steps out of the hovel, one hand still busy at his crotch. He steps over—steps _on_ —Baqir's corpse and sees Malik ogling him. He smirks and licks his lips.

There's a dusty flash as he pulls his sword from its scabbard.

In his terror Malik whirls around too quickly; he trips over his own feet and falls hard, elbows smacking against the ground. The air is ripped from him and he struggles for breath, but what he finally takes in is too gore-tinged, and he gags.

This time it is Kadar who flings himself beside his brother and tugs at trembling shoulders. "Brother," he says, voice choking in his throat. "What are…where…?"

"Murtada," Malik manages, but the minute the words are out of his throat he knows they aren't an answer. Murtada's house would be visible from where they are, if not for all the smoke, and yet none of the frantic crowds are surging there. Why should a large house be any safer than a small one? Both of them can burn.

But what else can Malik tell his brother? What other option is there but to make up some point of safety, for Kadar's sake if not his own? He has to tell him something. He has to protect his little brother somehow.

It is his duty. The world is mad and ending, but Malik's obligations have not changed.

He forces himself back to his feet, snatching his brother's hand again and breaking out into a fresh run. He doesn't look back to see if the soldier is following them; he's too afraid to turn his head and see the man lunging for him with that brutal sneer. The smoke is getting thicker, making Malik's head spin; Kadar is coughing, rubbing at red eyes with a dirty hand.

"Just a little bit farther," Malik tells him, despite the winded burn starting to spread in his lungs. "Murtada will have guards," he says. The lie is so sweet he half-believes it true. "We'll be safe there. Just a little further."

"I have a cramp," Kadar says in a tiny voice. His short legs have been working double to keep up with Malik's longer gate. "I have a cramp and it's too smoky."

"You have to keep running. Don't make me drag you along." Malik is too focused to notice how tired he's become. The houses they're passing now are more spaced out, but the fires are raging higher here, and it's just as hard to breathe. There are fewer people this far down—fewer living people, anyway. Plenty of bodies, melted into the earth, and a couple times Malik stumbles over some half-baked corpse, tripping on charred bits of bone. Kadar gives a little squeak of terror the first time it happens. Malik narrows his eyes and presses grimly on.

He has a death grip on his brother's hand, so tight his own fingers ache. If he were to lose Kadar somewhere in the haze…

"Come on," he says: his mantra, forming words with his lips because he has to, he needs to, Kadar trusts him and he needs to _make_ them both survive.

There are still soldiers, mostly on horseback since the ones are foot are busy running rabid in the more crowded parts of town. The horsemen are ringing the burning houses, joking with one another, clutching at whatever valuables they managed to steal. Occasionally some living villager manages to break from the street, and then the closest rider charges with drawn and bleeding sword.

"Don't look," Malik says to Kadar the first time this happens. "Look straight ahead, don't turn around." Neither one has to look to hear the screams as villager after villager is run down; it's just that there isn't a point to looking, not even to be shocked. There are plenty of horrors in front of them to be stared at, after all.

"Come on," Malik says. They pass a woman sitting by a half-collapsed hut, weeping with her headscarf askew. "Come on." There's a dead _something_ in the dirt, but Malik sees it too late and his foot comes down with a _crack_. "Come on." Someone in what was once an alleyway is moaning, again and again. The buildings are all destroyed, the road blocked by detritus, and beyond where the alley once ended a Templar sits on his horse and cleans his sword. Kadar is coughing again, eyes swollen, face pale. "Come _on_."

They round a bend, where on normal days there is a quick stretch of tended fields. Murtada's house, on normal days, is on the other side of those fields. On normal days the rich man can see the village without needing to live directly in its grime.

This is not a normal day. The fields have been trampled by a dozen horses, there is a dead body blocking the road further down, and Murtada's house is not burning. It simply isn't _there_. If he squints, Malik can see the rubble where it, on normal days, had been.

"There are guards," Kadar says, his voice cracking at the end. "You said Murtada had guards."

Malik tries to catch his breath. His head is swimmy, filling with fog.

"You said," Kadar repeats, shriller now. "There are guards, right? You _said_."

"Do you see any?" Malik snaps, but regrets it instantly. "There…I thought there were guards. I was wrong. There aren't any."

"But Murtada was rich," his little brother protests, still indignant. "Father always says he's powerful."

"He was. He is." Malik stares at the rubble. "I don't know. There aren't any guards."

Kadar stamps his foot. "I want to go home. You said Mother and Father would be at the market but I didn't see them and I'm tired and I want to go _home_."

"You saw the village! It's on fire, and there are Templars everywhere. We can't go back."

"I _want_ to."

"We can't go back." All Malik wants to do is collapse. He is so tired…he is just so…

"I want Mother," Kadar mumbles. He squats down, arms folded across his chest, tear-streaked face caught into a scowl. "Malik, I'm scared." Malik looks at him. At his younger brother. His responsibility. And he finds that he isn't quite so tired anymore.

He turns in a quick, dazed circle. The road behind them is a deathtrap, but surely there are other ways home? There's always the long way, through the hills that ring the village. The problem will be the gap between road and hill; if the Templars see them breaking through the trap it will be over, very quickly. Though the soldiers all seem preoccupied with watching the more populated area behind them. And if they reach that path, they can avoid the Templars and still find their house again. There's food there, and water—and their parents, surely, _surely_ their parents are back and safe—they can catch their breath there, anyway…

"Malik," Kadar shouts. He turns to see his life repeating, horribly: a demon-horse is cantering up the road towards them. Its Templar rider (who can't possibly be the same man who chased them into the flames, it's just that all the Templars have the same ugly faces, the same burnt grins) tugs on the reins. The horse breaks into a gallop.

"Get off the road," Malik gasps. "Run!" He gives his brother a hard shove. Kadar stumbles into the high grass of the field, but Malik turns to see the horse almost upon him—his mind goes past terror into icy numbness—the sword swings for him and he stares—

A rock cracks the Templar against the side of his head. The man swears, tugging the hand that's still grabbing the reins instinctively sideways. The horse skitters off the path, ears pressed back. Malik takes a giant step backwards.

_Kadar_ , he realizes. _Idiot! Why isn't he running away while he can?_

The Templar nudges his horse back onto the road. One hand is still clutching the reins and one hand the hilt of his sword, so the thin line of blood trickling down the side of his face flows unchecked. He bellows something, in his slimy tongue. Then he snarls, "Where th' bastard who t'rew it?" in a thick, accented Arabic. His clumsy mouth mangles the familiar words into something rank.

Another rock is launched from the high grass, but this one misses its mark entirely and instead strikes the horse. The beast makes a shrill noise of complaint; the Templar jerks at the reins, but his mount has become angry, and hard to control.

It's hard to say how Malik knows to do what he does next…it lies in front of him, his course of action, and he cannot help but take it. Perhaps it's his instincts, perhaps something else, but he knows how to move his body now. Knows how to twist his way in between horse and rider without being struck by hooves or blade. Knows to reach for the reins, to tug them as roughly as he can, so that the horse shies backwards, in pain. Knows to then release the reins, quickly, and jump back, though not before giving the alarmed Templar a shove…

The man swears again, as his horse rears back. Then he loses his grip on the reins and falls off, in an awkward way, still with one hand wrapped around leather. Because it's such an awkward fall he doesn't have time to prepare for the ground: he lands hard, full on his back. The horse moves away from its fallen master, towards the empty field. Malik stares at the groaning Templar. The man is huge, and armed, and a professional killer…

And Malik has stopped him, if only for a moment. It's something to consider, when he has the time.

For now he turns and runs into the opposite field, where Kadar is waiting. He grabs his brother's hand again, and pushes his weary legs as fast as he can for the path that will take them home.

_-i-_

The trail that cuts through the hills is frustratingly steep. The brothers are exhausted, their fast pace dissolved into a miserable trudging. At one point Kadar asks to stop, complaining of thirst, but Malik is too afraid that the Templars will catch up to them if they pause. So they keep going, with the older brother pulling the younger along. For a while Malik is able to distract them both from their misery by describing again and again the victory by Murtada's rubble.

"Your aim was perfect," he announces with a levity he doesn't feel. "Did you see the look on his face?"

"It was pretty funny," Kadar says with something approaching happiness. "I was real useful, right?"

"You saved my neck. Though," he adds sternly, "you should have run when I told you to."

"But then you'd be dead, Brother."

"Don't worry," says Malik. "Whatever happens, I won't die."

Kadar accepts this, or maybe he's just too tired to argue. The conversation falters and breaks away. It's beginning to get dark. Malik is still prepared to discover it's all been a dream. Surely he is sleeping, out in the fields…surely his father will come to find him soon, and lecture him on napping while the sheep are loose. Surely none of this has actually _happened_.

"Brother," Kadar says softly, "The village is gone. What are we going to do?" And Malik doesn't know how to answer.

The path finally leaves the hills, curves around and leads them into a field. On the other end of this field is the house that has been a place of safety, of rest, for as long as Malik has been alive. But now he approaches it warily, with chills running down the back of his neck, no longer able to trust anything after the madness in the village. He stops a few feet back from the house, by a large rock, and just after he does so he notices the soldiers.

The Templar soldiers. Three of them, standing outside the house, talking in their strange language. They all have swords, they're all so pale the sunlight seems to glance right off their skin. They all look like monsters, though Malik supposes they must be at least partially human under all that armor and white cloth.

"Where's Mother?" Kadar is overtired, and scared; his voice rises shrilly, and Malik has to shush him lest one of the Templars hears. He pulls them both down behind the rock and tries to think.

(He has been trying to think since the insanity started. It is so exhausting, to always have to be the one with the answers, the savior and the strength. Is this what it is to be an adult? Can't someone else be the brave one now? All Malik wants to do is sleep.)

"You said we'd go home and we'd be safe. You said Mother and Father would be in the village. _Ahki_ …" Kadar draws his knees to his chest. His tunic is caked with dirt and torn, his face smudged with ash and tears. Malik supposes that he must not look much better himself.

"I know. I'm sorry. Let's wait and see what they do. They can't stay here forever, they must have a…a group or something to join." It strikes him then that he has no idea what sort of soldiers the Templars _are._ Are they always from the same country? Is Malik's village at war? _Can_ a lone village be at war? The Templars have always been around, yes, but in small groups. Pockets of half-drunk bandits, pillaging and thieving and making the roads dangerous at night, but never _this_. Never destruction on such an enormous scale…

Once, the Christian armies and the Muslim ones had been at war, and there must have been similar scenes: cities burning, blood in waves. But that was a long time ago! Hadn't Malik's father said as much? Isn't he wise enough to know? The wars are over, and the Templars just a fading remnant of a bitter enemy—the wars are _over_ , and the times are calmer, and this is not supposed to happen, to them or anyone else.

Malik sits with his back against the rock and prays to Allah that the soldiers might move off. Back to their army, their country, their particular part of Hell. Just _back_ , so that Malik can breathe without tasting terror at the back of his throat. It has been only a little while since he was content, even bored, sitting with the sheep and daydreaming for lack of any real stress. Only a little while, but it has become years.

"What are they doing?" Kadar wants to know.

"Stealing stuff, probably."

"My good tunic!" Kadar says crossly. "Mother just made that for me!" He looks up at his brother. "Maybe they won't take it?" he asks. "It's _my_ tunic. An' I hope they don't take Father's prayer mat, 'cause he said he'd let me use it when I turned ten like you."

Malik, drained as he is, has to smile. He is quickly starting to realize that he can only be scared for so long before fear becomes the norm and he ceases to feel it. The horror is so complete that he is already forgetting what it is to feel safe, and so, somehow, being frightened loses its edge. "It's an expensive mat. They'll probably take it."

"It's not fair. It's Father's mat, not theirs." Kadar slouches. "And that's _my_ tunic."

"Shh. Keep your voice down. If they realize we're here, we're in trouble."

"It's dark," Kadar says, this time in a whisper. "When are they going to go?"

"Soon…" Malik gets back to his feet and peers out from behind the rock, so tense he can feel himself shaking. He squints in the fading light, just able to see the house and the Templars. There are still three men standing outside, but as Malik watches the front door bangs open and a fourth man appears, draped in shadow. He says something that makes the other three laugh. Then he steps farther outside, bent at the waist, and Malik sees that he is dragging something out by both hands. Dragging out—

Malik falls back, scuttling away from the sight on all fours. He shrieks but there is no sound.

The world becomes veiled. His eyes brim with tears but he cannot shed them; there is a howl building in his throat but he cannot yell. There will be a scream lurking inside him for years, forever, and it squeezes down on his lungs, it aches so badly, it tastes like ash. He wants to cry but can't. All he can do is double over, a dying man in the dirt. For he is a man now, he _must_ be, there is no way to stay a child and still see…Malik wraps his arms around his stomach and is willing to give up, but no one comes to accept the surrender.

The haze is pierced by two small hands, which latch onto his shoulders in a flurry of nails against skin. Malik, this new Malik, resents the intrusion. "Brother," he hears someone whisper. "What's wrong? What did you see? Malik, what's going on?"

His mind is a whirling blank, but even the new Malik knows his responsibilities. Somewhere he remembers his brother, and the only thought he has is that _Kadar must not see_.

"Don't look," he rasps out. "Kadar, don't look."

"Why not? What is it?"

"Stay behind the rock. Keep your eyes closed, don't look out."

But Kadar is curious, and grumpy in that childish way that says he has had enough of cryptic orders. "I wanna see," he says, and stands up to look out at the Templars.

Malik lunges, grabs him, knocks him back to the earth in a tangle of limbs. He does not know himself, does not know his brother, but he knows his duty and his duty is to protect. Malik the shepherd rears back and snarls in a voice he does not recognize as his own, " _I said don't look_." He hits Kadar across the face, with a child's strength but an adult's desperation. Finally he is crying, for the first time all day.

Kadar stares up at him, shocked into silence. For a moment, the only sound is Malik's harsh breathing. Then Kadar brings a hand to the red welt rising on his cheek and whimpers. Malik is jolted back to himself by the sad little sound.

"Oh," he says, faintly. He sits back against the rock, stunned. Kadar sits up slowly, looking lost.

And then Malik grabs for his brother, who does not flinch away but sits as still as stone, and pulls him into a tight embrace. Kadar shudders, and then they are both crying, and for the first time Malik begins to think he can survive the memory of the last few moments, the images seared into his skull.

"I'm sorry," he says. "Kadar, I'm sorry." He repeats himself until the words lose their meaning. Then he pulls back, and tries to look his brother in the eye. He even manages to stop the tears, and privately decides that they are the last ones he'll ever shed.

(He is the adult. He is the one who must be strong.)

"Kadar," he says, and waits until the younger boy stops sniffling. "It's just you and me now, ok? Do you understand? It's just us now. Things are all different and we have to survive. I'll protect you, so you don't have to be scared. I'll be the one to watch out for us now."

"What about Mother? And Father? Why can't they…?"

Memory pulses and for a second Malik is sure he's going to throw up. "It's just us," he says again, somehow with a steady voice. "We can't go home anymore, Kadar, ok? We don't have that home anymore. It's gone."

"Not fair," his brother mumbles.

"I—I know. It isn't. But…listen, I'll find us something new. We'll stick together. I…" and he struggles for air and words, "I'm sorry I hit you. I won't do it again, ever. But you have to listen to me, alright? It's just us now and I need to keep you safe, so you have to…you have to listen…"

"I will. I promise." Kadar wipes his nose on the back of his sleeve. He even manages to smile: a tiny, shaky one, but it's there.

"We shouldn't stay here," Malik says. "We'll have to find somewhere else to sleep tonight." He tries not to let his uncertainty show. "I'll find us a place. A new place, just for us."

"I liked our old one," Kadar sighs. Not a complaint, but a statement of fact. A sense of resignation he is far too young to have.

Malik says bitterly, "I did too. But we can't have it back. Mother and Father are gone. The Templars took everything."

"I hate Templars." The little brother clutches the older one's shirtfront and looks up at him. "Can't you fight them? You fought wolves."

"I…" The answer is blurry, and a bit grey around the edges, but as Malik watches it solidifies into something real. The hows and whens and wheres are still jumbled, but the what is clear as glass. "I'll fight them," he says. "Maybe we both will. I promise we'll fight off the Templars. I said I'd protect you, didn't I? I'll fight them all, some day."

"Ok," says Kadar, and there's nothing else to do but leave.

_-i-_

They slink back towards the path in the hills. Malik orders his brother not to look back at their house, _the_ house, in all its violence and betrayal. This time, Kadar listens.

There's nowhere to go—the nearest village is miles and miles away—so eventually they find some crevice, more a crack in a low-slung hill than a full cave, and settle in. Even the desert gets cold at night; there's no food, nor anywhere to wash up. Kadar is exhausted enough that he falls asleep almost instantly anyway, burrowing into Malik's lap for warmth, face still wet with fresh tears.

Malik stays awake. Malik is no longer tired.

He is still awake when, at some point hours later, Kadar opens his eyes and breathes out a faint, " _Brother_." He points at the fields in front of them. They are too far away now to see the house, but still close enough to see the familiar glow from flames on creaking wood. At least, Malik thinks, they are too far away to see the fire itself. The house has become a hated thing, but even so, he is glad he doesn't have to watch it burn.

"Malik…" Kadar starts to say, but stops when he sees the expression in his brother's eyes. The night wears on, but neither one of them has anything left to say. And Malik does not sleep.

 


	3. Part One Chapter Two: Talking to Dead Men

The dawn is clear and cruel. Malik wishes he'd slept, because now he can't even pretend yesterday was a nightmare. He sees the faint hope in Kadar's eyes as his little brother wakens, and longs to feel it himself. It's hard to say who is hurt more when Malik shakes his head slightly—it's something they'll never talk about, but it'll always be lurking between them, wrapped sneering in their shadows.

This horrible dawn. This start to a life that neither brother wants.

"Stay here," Malik says. His voice is hoarse and his mouth feels full of sand. His eyes are burning. He peers out from the crevice, and is almost surprised not to see Templars staring back. "I'm going to find food."

But Kadar latches onto his tunic-front and refuses to let go. "I wanna stay with you," he says, scared. "We gotta stay together, right? I don't wanna wait by myself."

Malik pries his fingers loose, gently. "I know," he says, "but it's too dangerous for both of us to wander into the open until we're sure it's safe. We need food and water, especially if we're going to leave the…the village."

Kadar stares at him with huge eyes. "Where are we going? The next village?"

"I don't think so. If the Templars are marching through…the whole area probably isn't safe."

"Then where?" Kadar is becoming an expert scowler for a six-year-old boy. "I don't wanna live in a cave."

Malik hides a tired smile. It hurts to lift his lips: his whole body hurts, throbs from yesterday's running and the terrifying night spent on hard ground. He feels an old man rather than an adult; it's an old man's smile he forces through now.

"We aren't going to live here," he says. Then he hesitates. He's been musing over the idea all night, unsure and undecided while Kadar slept—he is the adult now and so he is the one who must choose, but he still doesn't know how to tell a right decision from a wrong one, and…

_Father, where are you? How did you always know what to do? What if I make a mistake? Who will be there to fix everything up?_

_What if he dies, Father?_

"We're going to Damascus," Malik says firmly. Kadar's eyes fill with wonder, and his own heart skips a beat at hearing the declaration made out loud. Damascus, of the sky-scraping towers, the white stone roads, the throngs of people in an endless sea. The great city, second only to Jerusalem: a stronghold of the Faithful, and a slice of the world. _Damascus_.

"Why there?" his brother wants to know.

"Because…" Because the old world has burned alive, and the new one must be so different as to destroy even the memory of its predecessor. Because that is the only way Malik will be able to face tomorrow's dawn, and the dawn after that. Because the old him had always longed to see Damascus, and the new him still remembers what it was like to dream.

"Because it'll be safe there," he says. " _Sayyid_ Hamid told me once that it's full of Muslim soldiers, so there won't be any Templars. There'll be plenty of room for us…we'll find somewhere to live, and…and I'll get a job. I'm old enough to carry messages or apprentice somewhere or…whatever."

Kadar nods. "I'll work too," he says. "Real hard."

But Malik shakes his head. His eyes glint with something too fierce to be joy. If this must be a new life, so be it—but he will control what needs to be changed. "You're gonna go to school," he says.

"School?" Kadar mouths the holy word. "But Mother and Father never sent us."

"They couldn't afford it, I don't think. And anyway, where would they send us? We're too far from everything here. But in Damascus there'll be plenty of teachers, and I'll make sure we can afford to pay them. I'll work all night. You'll learn to read and write, we'll have plenty of food and somewhere to live. Something small," he cautions, already on guard against what sounds too pleasant to be real even in his head. "Something small but nice."

"And it'll be the two of us?"

"Yeah. We'll stay together." Malik rises on stiff legs. The sun is still low in the sky, but it's already hot. His clothing feels caked onto his skin; there is no moisture left in his mouth. Past the hill the fields lie quiet. "But we're going to need food and water if we're going to make it all the way to Damascus."

"How far is it, Malik?"

"Far." (And thankfully Kadar doesn't ask the one question he has been dreading, namely that of _how will we get there_? Malik doesn't know where the great city is. Hamid once mentioned there were signs…) "So I'm going to find food for us—"

"Not yet." Kadar grabs at his tunic again.

"We can't stay here forever. Look, you have to be brave."

"I know. I will be. Just…just wait a little bit. I'm not hungry yet."

"You're a bad liar," Malik admonishes, but he sits back down anyway, relieved in a way for the excuse. "I'm only going to wait for a minute. Then I really have to go. You'll be fine. Stay in the cave where no one can see you." Kadar promises to listen, but his fingers remain ensnarled in cloth. Malik has to remind him often that he'll only wait a little longer, a few more minutes, half an hour at best.

He does not leave the cave for another full day.

The sky darkens and the stars come back out, bright and distant. Kadar falls asleep, and this time even Malik is tired enough that his eyes drift shut. There is a pattern forming here, a desperation for safety and stable ground that is broken only the next morning, when Malik is roused awake by the burning in his throat. He _needs_ water—him and Kadar both. When he stands up, his empty stomach makes the world spin.

Kadar knows better than to protest his brother's leaving this time; he's just as hungry and parched. "I'll come with you," he tries instead. "I can help you carry stuff."

"No." Malik is firm.

"Why not? Why can't I go with you?"

"Because you can't." Because the house is gone. Because the Templars were there. Because there is still that Image in his head, and when he goes back he isn't sure what exactly he'll find lying hacked and broken in the dirt.

Malik is scared as he leaves the imaginary comforts of the cave. He is beyond scared. He dreads each step and every glance. The fields are the same as last night, though there is evidence of their being trampled by horses and boot-laden feet. The walk from hills to house takes him twenty agonizing minutes. When he passes the rock they hid behind, he feels nausea rise to swipe at him again. In the distance, smoke trails lazy patterns against the blue sky.

The sun is shining. It's hot. It's quiet. Malik's every footfall seems jarringly loud. He wonders what would happen if he started to run and just kept _going_ —past desert, past town, until Damascus is there to wrap itself around him. What would happen if he put the first ten years of his life aside and pretended a new one until it felt real?

He wonders this for a few minutes, because he is only human and he is so tired, but then he lets the thought go and trudges onwards. The thought of running leaves a sour taste in his dry throat. Why should _he_ run? What has he done to deserve that sort of life? It isn't _fair_. The Templars are the ones who should be running.

Malik, at ten, is very stern in his belief that things should be fair.

Anyway, he acknowledges with a frown, he can't abandon Kadar. They'll find Damascus together. And if they can't find Damascus, then they'll find some other place. Either way. Whatever. It's awfully hard to be passionate about anything at all, baking as he is in what has become a wasteland. The village must always have been this hot, this far from anything else. Malik's home must have always been lonely.

It just never felt that way before.

There: he stops, abruptly, feet scuffing the dust. He is prepared to see a pile of ash and beams burnt black, so it is worse in some ways to see that half of the house is still standing. The front room is gone, and so is the middle—Malik pictures his mother bent over the fireplace and his stomach twists—but the last room is still more or less intact.

His shoes raise small clouds of black dust as he makes his hesitant way forward. It all smells like smoke and rot and ash. He steps first onto the pile of rubble that was the front room and remembers sitting here with his father and the villagers. He remembers sitting in the dead room and talking to dead men. There is nothing here salvageable; this could be any bonfire's detritus, any cooking fire's remnants. There is nothing here to suggest 'house'.

So Malik steps over a cracking beam and stands in the second pile of rubble. This, too, has been reduced to ruin. What, he thinks numbly, does Allah think about this? Can houses die as well as people? Does it make sense to feel surrounded by the ghosts of chairs and beds and cooking pots?

He turns to regard that last room. It is not, he sees up close, truly there: only walls are still standing, the wood darkened and warped but somehow not collapsed. The room's innards, though, are an ugly, burned shambles. There is no ceiling, and the sun beats down as pitilessly here as anywhere else.

There is nothing here to salvage. Malik can't remember why he bothered to come. He feels foolish even as he kicks around for something to hold—his father's prayer mat, his brother's tunic, one of his mother's scarves. He doesn't find anything. Eventually he gives up.

On his way back to his brother, still tired and hungry, so thirsty that the ground bucks and swims before his eyes, he stops at the sheep pen. There are no sheep here now, not that he was expecting to find any. Malik the shepherd has lost his herd. The old gate leans brokenly, torn from its uppermost hinge.

 _I should have made sure it was closed,_ he tells himself, knowing it wouldn't have made a difference either way. _I shouldn't have been so lazy._

He keeps walking.

_-i-_

Kadar is huddled by the cave mouth, knees pressed to his chest, looking sullen. There are some small stones gathered into a pile by his feet.

Malik stops in front of him. "Expecting Templars?" he asks. Then he winces—his throat is parched enough that talking hurts.

His brother doesn't look up at him. "Find anything?" he asks, rasping with a hand at his throat.

"No." Malik studies the pile of stones. "I want to check out the rest of the village. There has to be something. But I came back to get you first."

Kadar shakes his head. "I don't want to see the village," he mumbles.

"We can stop at the stream on the way," Malik coaxes. "I know you're thirsty. And we need food if we're gonna reach Damascus, right?"

"I guess."

"Come on. You can take your stones with you."

Kadar finally looks up. "In case of wolves?" he wants to know.

Malik's throat tightens, independent of its thirst. "Yeah," he says. "In case we have to fight them off."

"But I'm not ten yet, Brother. I don't think I could do it."

"I'll teach you. You trust me, right?"

Kadar nods. He rises to his feet, swaying a bit. Somewhere under all that dirt is Malik's six-year-old brother, but as is he's hard to recognize. Malik smiles and reaches for his hand.

_-i-_

They reach the stream and drink eagerly. Malik squats and cups his hands together to drink from; Kadar is so thirsty he falls onto all fours and laps at the stream like a dog until his brother swats at his head for him to stop. The water is delicious in its flavorless chill. It diminishes both thirst and hunger, filling up aching bellies for the time being. That won't last forever, Malik knows, but it's a nice feeling for now.

He washes his hands, dips his head in and tries to scrub some of the dirt off his face. Then his hair, which has become stiff with sand: the washing feels wonderful, and he stops only to make sure Kadar is following suit.

"Clothes off," he orders. "We might be wearing this stuff for a while, so we have to try and keep it all clean." Kadar bobs his head and begins the laborious task of removing stones from his pockets.

The sun is hot against Malik's bare back as he dunks his shirt underwater. Kadar, having left his own tunic for his brother to clean as well, sits in the stream and scoops up handfuls of mud. Brown ooze drips through his fingers. "I'm hungry," he says after a while. Already the water's magic is wearing away. "Will there be food in the village?"

"We'll find something. Here—put this back on. _After_ you're out of the mud."

Kadar shrugs his way back inside his clothing. The sodden fabric sticks to his skin, but at least clean he is recognizable. "How long will it take us to get to Damascus?"

Malik takes his time getting dressed, using it as an excuse to scrounge up an appropriate answer. "A while," he says eventually. " _Sayyid_ Hamid said it took him five days but he was on horseback. Might take a couple of weeks, if we walk. So we need to bring enough food to last."

"Can't we buy some along the way?"

 _With what money?_ Malik shrugs. "We'll see." He stands up, looks in the direction of the village. "It's getting late," he says, "so let's get going." Then, after a pause: "There won't be much left," he says, carefully. "Don't be scared if it looks all…"

But Kadar is reloading himself with his rocks. He is as prepared as he can be, and Malik leaves the rest of his warning behind.

_-i-_

They reach the village by the same path they took to reach it two days ago, and just as before it rests below them, nestled in the valley. Just as before, it is smoking and strange. Most of it is gone (the houses replaced by that same bonfire's ash that swallowed their home), and what still stands is wrecked. And there are still bodies.

But what can they do? They need to eat. So Malik leaves Kadar waiting by the first building still somewhat intact and begins the search. It's a long, dirty, wretched process: the corpses are bloated from two days in the sun, and they stink. Malik does not look at them, is too afraid of recognizing someone. He avoids what's left of _Sayyid_ Baqir's house altogether. At least Kadar doesn't seem too traumatized: he busies himself looking for more stones.

There isn't much of value to find, considering how thorough a job the Templars did of looting. Malik walks past a mangy old dog, lying beside what must be its owner's body; it growls when it sees him, fur rising along its spine, but it doesn't get to its feet. Occasionally a flustered chicken hurries past rubble. Malik ignores both creatures: there's no way for them to keep a living animal alive.

The village, last week, had been bustling despite its size. Now there are no housewives clustering at the well, no men hurrying to the mosque for prayer. There isn't a mosque at all, flattened as it was by the Templars' delighted rage.

Malik searches ghost houses, is careful to apologize to each ghost occupant for taking what little he finds. Bits of passages from the Holy Quran float through his mind when he passes the visible dead, but he brushes them aside. His father would be horrified to hear it, but in this situation it seems mere laments aren't enough, no matter how holy. Malik has no choice but to forge his own answers out of the earth. Surely Allah will understand.

After two hours of searching, with his emotional and physical reserves of strength depleted, Malik considers his haul. He's found three loves of bread, one of them rock-hard with age, all of them covered with ash. He's found a hunk of cheese, large enough to last a while; there's a bit of mold at the edge but that's easy to scrape off. There's a tiny cloth bundle of chickpeas: enough for three meals, maybe, if they eat them slow. And, lastly, one whole onion, fresh and large, the true prize.

Malik scrounges around a bit longer, finding a grimy sack and two jars with lids still attached. Leaving the food with his brother, he walks past the village itself to an even tinier stream, running low in its banks under the hot sun. Still, it's water, and Malik washes both sack and jars. One of the jars is chipped on the lip, he notices as he fills it for the trek, running his thumb along the crack. Not too sharp. They'll make do…

He goes back to the village, rounds up his brother and the food. Once they've left the smells behind, they find shade under an old, dead tree. This seems the perfect place for rest and nourishment. Malik rips off two small chunks from the stale loaf of bread, with some difficulty, and then follows suit with the cheese. The meal is then garnished with the tiniest sliver of onion.

Malik had planned on eating slowly, to make the meal last, but he hadn't realized just how hungry he'd been until the onion's pungent smell struck him. He's helpless before the demands of his stomach and practically inhales the food.

"We'll have a bigger meal tomorrow," he tells his brother. "The road runs right along the stream, so as long as we follow it there'll always be water." He shows Kadar one of the jars, lid on tightly. "Still, try to make this last. We might have to avoid the road for a while if we see more soldiers."

"And then we'll find Damascus?"

"Yeah." Malik stands, considers the sun against the line of the horizon. It's later in the day, and cooler now; they've washed up, eaten, and had time to rest. No sense in delaying the journey.

He turns to face Kadar. "Well," he says. "Let's go."


	4. Part One Chapter Three: What Desolate Land

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Kadar nearly gets himself adopted and Malik nearly gets himself killed.

Malik is not used to distance.

He knows that his village was a remote one, he recognizes the gap from earth to sky. He has spent many a dull day staring off at the horizon line. But it is one thing to know that the Earth is endless, and quite another thing to be surrounded by that endlessness, to reach the horizon when it had always been so very far away.

The village remnants have long since passed into the distance. The next village has yet to appear. Malik and Kadar follow the dirt road, which follows the stream, and they see no other travelers. There are mountains in the distance, fantastic in their size even from far away. The road curves over hills, occasionally borders some great ravine; Malik orders his brother away from the edge, just in case. He's heard of rock slides, doesn't want to have to chase Kadar down the side of a cliff.

There are fields, most of them dead in the heat, and huge swaths of unused land. The road is a dried expanse of flattened rocks, rough and pitted, curving in sharp lines against sand dunes shoulder-high. There are signs of animal life: birds circling above, a rabbit that jerks away when they get too close. At one point, they pass a barn, or what's left of it. The structure is rotted and warped, a collapsed heap on baked-dry ground. It's the only human sign they've seen in a while—and it isn't the arrow pointing towards Damascus that Malik had hoped it would be.

They walk.

In the worst heat of the noon day they break for an hour. Malik passes out bread and cheese and water; Kadar has already learned not to complain about the portion sizes, but his eyes are huge in his head as he watches the food pass from bag to hand. They eat, slowly, chatting around mouthfuls. They've been walking—how many days? Malik has lost track—there's no sense of urgency to the meal. Better to dawdle, to gather strength for whatever difficult stretch of road lies ahead.

Kadar has adapted well to the constant moving. He's still gathering stones, and by now there's a heavy pile weighing down his pockets. But at night, no matter what sort of shelter they've managed to find, he sleeps curled up almost on top of his older brother. Sometimes he wakes them both up with wild nightmares, vibrant renderings of screams and flames.

Early each morning they wash in the stream and refill their jars. Despite his best efforts, Malik can't get their clothing clean the way their mother always could; his tunic and Kadar's become blotched with brown stains. Grit cakes the seams. He dunks Kadar under the water, trying to get the dirt out of his hair and off his face, but that's something else he isn't very good at doing. Kadar is delighted at the excuse to run around messy, but Malik suspects he should be concerned at how bedraggled they're both starting to look.

When it comes down to it, Malik isn't sure if he's leading them very well. Mostly he makes sure they cover a decent amount of ground each day, but not knowing which direction Damascus lies is unsettling. Still, it isn't as though they can leave the stream's side, even if the great city is beyond it. Sooner or later they will have to pass a village, and someone who knows where to go.

It's scary, though. The world is so large. And Malik feels so small. And at night _his_ dreams are of soft beds and large meals, and the comforts of a herd of sheep. He wonders if Damascus will be an easy place in which to live. He wonders what he'll be doing in three years, three months, three days. He wonders if he will ever be able to sleep the whole night through again.

And then, maybe two weeks after they started walking, Malik opens up the bag with their food and finds nothing inside but a stale crust of bread.

He hands it to Kadar with exclamations of how tired he is, _far_ too tired for eating, he will just drink some water because that's really all he can handle. Really. Kadar accepts this and the bread both. Malik has never been so glad that his brother is only six.

Sleep that night does not come at all, and eventually he stops trying. What are they supposed to do now? How long can they last on water alone? Where did all the _food_ go? Malik _tried_ to ration it carefully, it's been three days since they actually ate anything for lunch: lately it's been small meals when they wake and before they sleep, and water when they stop at noon. He's been moving with an ache in his stomach that doesn't fade even after he's eaten. When he stands up now dark spots flicker in front of his eyes, and he suspects it's the same with Kadar—they've been walking slower, sleeping later, dragging their feet earlier and earlier into the day.

They've been going hungry on the food they had. And now there isn't any food at all.

He turns to look at his brother, who is fast asleep with his head tucked against Malik's leg. Kadar has definitely lost weight: his cheek bones seem more prominent, his wrists whittled down to thin skin and bone. His lips are cracked deep enough to bleed, even with all the water they've been drinking.

Malik stands up, walks the few steps over to the stream. It's gotten lower since they've started following it; at this point it's a mere trickle against sharp stones. Something else to fear—what if the water dries up? 

"Now what?" he whispers. _Father, tell me._

Malik's never been this hungry before. He studies the narrow contours of his face in the water's reflection and realizes how scrawny his own form has become. His hair is stiff with dirt, his face several shades browner from the constant sun. When he lifts his tunic, he can see the clear outline of each and every rib. Skipping dinner was difficult…there hadn't been much for breakfast…and then he had given Kadar most of his portion of last night's dinner, because the younger boy looked so ravenous it hurt…

The next day is hard. There's no breakfast, no hope of any dinner. Kadar has gone back to being sullen and scowly, not that Malik can fault him for it. He drinks water from one of the jars until his stomach hurts, but even then he's still faint-headed from hunger. The sky above them is a heavy weight and the heat rising from the road gives everything a fuzzy sheen.

"Malik," Kadar says, "I'm tired. Can we stop for a while?"

"You slept for over an hour when we stopped for…" Malik hesitates, not sure what to call a lunch break without any lunch. "If we keep stopping we'll never get there."

"But I'm tired."

"How can you be tired already? We've only been walking for a little while."

Kadar's shrug is alarming. His little brother has a dull carelessness in his eyes. The pace has slowed tremendously since they first set out, but even so, Kadar starts to fall behind. Malik considers the road in front of him with a shaking hand pressed to his forehead. The ground is heaving. Isn't it? He can hear his heart pulsing in his ears.

So hungry…if there could be even the smallest bit of bread…

"Can we ask them for food?" For a moment Malik hasn't the faintest idea what his brother is talking about, but then Kadar points and the older boy spots the small cluster of people sitting a few miles down the road, under the shade of a small tree. There are five of them, all men, dressed in threadbare, white robes and turbans to block the sun. Pilgrims, if their clothing is any judge, on their way to some shrine. Every now and then a group would pass through Malik's village, and they were always fed and sheltered and treated with respect until they left—holy actions in service to Allah deserved their reward.

"Can we?" Kadar asks again.

"They probably don't have much," Malik says, trying for wise. Is it fair to ask pilgrims for favors? Doesn't it usually work the other way around? But he is starving, and he knows that Kadar is as well. And that ranks higher than anything else. "Let's try, though. Come on."

The men stare at them as they approach, eyes no doubt taking in the grubby clothes and sunken cheeks. Kadar stands a bit behind his brother, one hand clutched at the back of his tunic. Malik is almost too excited at the prospect of food to remember the customary greetings. He opens his mouth, but at the last moment remembers that he is an adult, and that adults should always be polite and dignified.

So: "Peace go with you," he says, pulling himself up to his full, if limited, height. Four of the men say nothing in response—one of them actually turns away—but the fifth continues to gaze with sharp eyes. Eventually he nods.

"And with you," the man says, scratching at his hairline from under the turban. His eyes are green, his nose beaked, his left cheek cut in two by a scar running from eye to lip. He sounds brusque, maybe even impatient. "This is a strange place to meet travelers so young. Where are your parents, boy?"

"Malik's not a—" Kadar starts to protest. But Malik, wilting under the pilgrim's disinterest, eager to prove his maturity to these men who have clearly failed to note that he is _ten_ , interrupts.

"Don't talk over your elders, Kadar," he scolds: and the pilgrims break out into laughter before he's finished the sentence. Even their dour speaker grins, meanly.

Malik, flushing, winces at the laughter as if being struck. A low buzzing starts up in his ears. He is suddenly very acute of how hot the sun is on his back, how disheveled and dirty he must look, how small he is compared to the desert he is in. He swallows. The back of his throat aches, but Malik has already forsworn tears.

The speaker shakes his head and lifts his hand. The long sleeves of his robe cascade around his wrists, the fabric bunching about his fingers when he gestures. "If it's food you're after, there's a place a mile down the road," he says. Malik studies the hairy knuckles as they point. "Before you reach the village itself. They might be willing to feed a couple of beggars."

"Oh," says Malik, "we're not—" and the word blasts into him, slices cleanly as an arrow through the gut. _Beggar_. The lowest of the world, loved by Allah and no one else. Always filthy, and sometimes scary, and _forgotten_. Ignored. Is that what they are now?

"We had a home," he tries to argue, "and we're going…"

The pilgrims aren't listening. No sympathy for someone who has to lower themselves on someone else's scraps. No honor in it. Malik doesn't have a home and he doesn't have parents and he doesn't have money or anything of value…so what else is he? Doesn't 'beggar' fit? And can he blame the pilgrims for their callousness? A month ago he would have given a wide birth to any wild-haired stranger who outstretched a sand-smeared hand for food. Even his mother would have closed the door. Malik looks at his own hands: slender fingers rubbed raw from harsh stream scrubbings, nails bitten to the bloody quick, grime crusted to each knuckle. He presses one of those hands against his shirtfront, feels the roughness of a fabric overworn and overwashed.

He has beggar's hands, doesn't he? What difference is there between himself and the old man who used to sing at the mosque? That man had been pathetic in his blindness, in his drooling, toothless grin. He'd lurk by the mosque doors, humming, hands outstretched, and he was tolerated. Yes, _tolerated_ : as a means for the villagers to accomplish their Allah-given charitable duties. As a reminder that even they were not _that_ desperate, though they might be poor. They tolerated the beggar, 'their beggar' (their beggar and no others) but no one paid him much attention unless they were pressing coins against his palm.

Where did that old blind man go when the prayers were done? Where did he spend the night? Did he just sit in front of the tiny mosque, singing to an empty street? Malik never wondered before. Why hadn't he? Who notices a wasted man?

"Well?" cuts in one of the pilgrims. "Get going, then. There's nothing here for you."

"Yes," Malik manages, faint and drawn-in. "Thank you."

The green-eyed man sighs. "They'll feed you," he says, "but then you should move on. This area isn't for the likes of you." His tone dips down more in warning than in scorn, but Malik barely registers the difference. He mumbles something polite and grabs Kadar by the wrist again; he can feel the speaker's eyes plastered to his back as he all but skulks away.

"What happened?" Kadar demands. "Why didn't they give us anything?" Malik is awhirl in sour frustration and doesn't answer. Nasty words he didn't realize he knew—picked up from _Sayyid_ Baqir, no doubt—swim at his lips. As an adult and as a humiliated _beggar_ he is tempted to use them. Arrogant bastards! Stupid sons of whores!

"Ma _lik_." Kadar squirms, panting as his older brother speeds up. "What's _wrong_?"

Malik marches along, head high. No money and no food but _pride_ —who are those men that they are so high-class? Next time he won't stay so meek. Next time he will blast the offender until he runs out of breath. For a hundred years, he will curse them…

"You're not even listening to me," Kadar grumbles. "Why didn't we get food from them? They must've _had_ it."

Malik snaps, "You were there, weren't you?" He tugs at his brother's hand. "Come on. We're going."

Kadar cranes his head over his shoulder, trying to spot the white blur. "We've already gone," he points out: at the next drifting curve the pilgrims are blocked from view forever. Kadar twists even further to try and see, ultimately stumbling over a rock in the road. Malik growls and yanks him forward.

"Watch where you're going or you'll fall and break something. Or you'll ruin your shoes. You don't have another pair so if you ruin those you'll have to walk barefoot and that'll hurt 'cause of the rocks but I won't carry you, I just _won't_." Malik feels both better and worse for releasing his anger. His voice wavers, defiant or dejected.

"I was just asking," Kadar says quietly. "You never tell me anything."

Malik doesn't respond, but his grip on his brother's hand tightens as he drags them both down the empty road.

_-i-_

The house, when they see it a mile or so later, is a thatched-roof hut. One door, one window, a skinny donkey braying in the dead field out back. The roof, ill-fitting, hangs over the back end of the house, forming a sliver of shade that someone has tried to use for a scraggly sort of garden. The road passes right in front, desolate as ever, but behind the house and the field are some rolling hills; the house stands in front of them as if a beacon or a guard. Malik, resentful in his light-headedness, marches to the front door and knocks. He has already decided with all the force of a ten-year-old that he will raid the garden if no one answers.

But someone does answer. A woman, headscarved as they always are, about the same age as their mother but with dark stress lines cutting across her face. The shock of hair jutting loose from the headscarf is black flecked with grey. Her cheekbones are prominent—she's as thin as the swaddled baby cradled in her arms.

She pulls open the door wider, straining against the warped wood, when she sees Malik looking up at her in some shyness. Strange women are not something Malik has much experience with; he is old enough to know he cannot be as bold with ladies as he might be with their male relations, but not old enough that looking one in the eye would be considered a serious insult. He does not _need_ to wait for this stranger to fetch her husband before opening his mouth, but wonders if he should anyway. The adult world is so full of complexities and contradictions, he is learning day by day.

Not that the woman is even looking at him. She's staring at Kadar, half-hidden behind his brother and beaming hopefully, and her mouth rounds in surprise. "…Are you children from the village?" she asks, so quiet there's no tone to the words.

Malik shakes his head. "We're traveling," he says, because it isn't so far from the truth.

"Alone? Where are your parents?"

"I'm taking care of us," he mumbles, bracing for more scorn. But the woman only grows still. The baby in her arms whines a bit, waving an arm free of the blankets. But rather than lift it to her breast the woman only shifts it in her grip; the baby whines a bit more, but still she doesn't feed it, and a part of Malik notes the thin bruising of that arm. Kadar as an infant had been so much larger, hadn't he? All baby-fat, and a real howler when hungry. Malik looks again at this creature, sees how quick it is to stop its cries.

"Where are you going?" the woman asks, softly. Malik considers lying, but Kadar chirps an answer before he has a chance.

"Damascus. We've been walking for _ever_."

"Damascus," she repeats, with the faintest of smiles. "That's a long journey. You're so young for such a trip." She flicks her eyes up and down, and Malik knows she is considering the malnourished urchin his brother is starting to resemble. The urchin they're _both_ starting to resemble. He braces again, but the woman seems uninterested in smirking. She is too busy smiling at Kadar with all a mother's love.

(Though they have been in the desert for a lifetime, Malik still remembers _mothers_. Last night he dreamt of his own mother and her stew. He woke up to Kadar sleeping practically on top of him, and felt his hunger more than his loss.)

"We're out of food," he says now. "Do you have anything you could give us? I'll work for it," he adds, before this woman can strike him with the same beggar-curse.

"I will too," Kadar pipes up.

"You're too _young_. He's too young," Malik says.

"Am not. I used to help Mother clean the house while you were with the sheep. I cleaned the whole kitchen once."

Malik says, exasperated, "That's not the same thing. This is a different kind of work."

"Why's it different? You don't even know what you're doing."

"This is adult stuff, ok? Look, you're the lucky one. You can sit and wait for me. I'm the one who has to do the hard part."

"Neither of you have to work," the woman interjects with dancing eyes. "Wait out here…"

"Fahima?" A man, presumably her husband, appears in the darkness behind her shoulder. He is as taut-thin as his wife, as his child: brown skin painted over bone with nothing to soften the impact. With his clean-shaven face he could be thirty years old or sixty-five. Impossible to tell—Malik can see only that he is tired, that exhaustion billows out over this entire family in waves. "Fahima?" the man says again, but this time he is talking to their unexpected guests and everyone knows it. "Who is this?"

"Travelers," she says, gazing somewhere by his feet. "Looking for something to eat."

The man is silent for a long while. He looks at his wife, his child, at the leathery skin wrapped about his hands. He is silent so long Malik begins to wonder if this isn't his way of saying no, if he is waiting in stern silence until his unwanted guests give up and trudge away. But they _can't_ trudge like this…!

"I'll work for it," Malik says. "I can pick crops or watch herds or…I'll work if you want. We just need a little bit." Fahima's husband appears unmoved.

'"Cause we're going to Damascus," Kadar adds. "Malik's gonna work and I'm gonna learn words and school things. But we didn't take enough food 'cause of the Templars burning everything and now I'm hungry. My shoes are fine, though," he insists. Malik wants to smack him. Stupid six-year-old brothers!

"Stop talking so much," he snaps. Kadar crosses his arms and pouts.

"Templars, huh?" The man scratches his chin. He glances sideways at his wife, shrugs. "Let them stay a night," he says. "They can sleep here if they keep out of the way. Just for one night, though. We aren't an inn…"

"Thank you," Malik is quick to say. Dinner, and rest, taken inside a house for once! He remembers his mother's cooking and his mouth fills with spit on cue. Such thick stews she used to make, even during lean times when the sheep were too few to slaughter. Such spices, such heavy broth. Probably this Fahima woman won't be quite as skilled a cook, but _still_ —Malik is so used to dreaming of stew at night.

"Say thank you, Kadar," he says, dazed by their good fortune. But Kadar doesn't answer, and when Malik snaps back into focus he sees that the woman has taken his brother by the hand to lead him inside, as a mother might her son.

_-i-_

The house inside is dark, cramped despite the lack of furniture. Hot, too, with air sitting thick and still despite the window. Malik helps their host feed the goat; the man is silent and the goat ravenous over the handful of scraps. Both humans and animals show off all their ribs. Fahmia stays inside, stirring an odorless concoction while her child naps fretfully in a pile of blankets. Kadar has been tasked with keeping an eye on the baby, but mostly he chatters to their hostess about sheep and brothers and rocks for throwing, and the respective benefits of each. When Malik reenters the house he has to stand in the crooked doorway for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, and he watches Fahima beam at his brother.

The baby wakes up, whimpers, reaches again for the breast. "In a little while," its mother coos. It drifts back off to sleep, a small bundle half-lost among the rags.

When the man comes back inside his wife serves the stew. It's as lacking in flavor as in smell. Malik and Kadar sit against a wall, separate from their hosts, and guzzle it down nonetheless. Food touches empty bellies once more; the act of eating is painful, and amazing. The man watches them over his own bowl, warning with hard eyes not to ask for more. They don't, but Fahima serves them a second helping anyway. Kadar is so eager he chews like a sheep, noisily and with his mouth half open, and Malik has to stomp on his foot out of sheer embarrassment.

The stew really isn't that good, though. There's no meat, just some mushy vegetables, a potato or two. The broth might as well be water. After two bowls, Malik is still hungry. They were very _small_ bowls, honestly…tiny portions, even by Malik's diminished standards.

After dinner the child makes its hopeless whine and finally Fahima moves aside to give it milk. Shifting to his assigned place by the door, Malik thinks back to Kadar as a baby. When he was hungry, he yelled so loud it alarmed their parents. But it's hard to yell when hungry. Even now he doesn't think he has the strength himself. What must it be like to live in a place where you never have strength enough to scream?

The house grows pitch-black with nightfall, even darker somehow than the world outside. Malik has grown used to stars, but now when he looks up he sees the flat nothing of a ceiling. Weeks of walking have left his limbs sore but able, and the softness of the blanket underneath him feels wrong. Being in a house again isn't as comfortable as he'd remembered. All it's doing is reminding him of what he's already walked past.

Where _is_ he? What house is this, what desolate land? Why is he here, and not at home? As long as they were in the desert Malik was busy with the work of survival, but now that they have reached some semblance of civilization he is overwhelmed with memories of what civilization was like…

His chest tightens. He feels the scream he'll always have pulsing at the bottom of his throat. Restless now he turns on his side, towards the huddled shape that is his fast-asleep brother, and whispers, "Sorry." Not that he's sure what the apology is for. Maybe it's for a lot of things. None of this was ever supposed to be in Kadar's life.

Sleep will not find Malik in this house, all barren heat, all poverty. It seems harder to breathe; the air clenches against his lungs. He stares back up at the ceiling and for the first time in all the weeks of travel has nothing to do but remember that he's scared.

It would be nice to cry. If only he could.

A whispered conversation tilts into his ears just then, and grateful for the distraction he tilts his head with it to listen. Fahima and her husband are still awake, sitting by the far wall, the baby sleeping between them. No doubt this is a private conversation between man and wife, no doubt they wouldn't want him listening in—but Malik has never understood why people have such difficulty keeping private things _private_. How can he help but eavesdrop, when the words are right there?

"…keep them?" he hears their host murmur. Fahima's response is a gust of air, too soft and quick to catch in full. Malik closes his eyes, forces himself to take more even breaths. "How? Look at your son…"

"I don't know," she says. "Maybe just one of them. Maybe just the little one."

"So our own will die in his place."

"No," says Fahima, but she has none of a mother's fierceness. She speaks strong words with fragile hesitation, with a hopelessness that reflects in her slumped shoulders. "He won't."

"Look at him and tell me…" says the man, and he has all the fierceness his wife lacks. "If we take in some urchin off the road, how will he be any better off?"

Fahima drops her voice even more. Malik strains to overhear. "…so young…dangerous, out there. We could keep him safe."

"No. There's no way. Should we wait for the crops to grow? Should we wait for the rain?"

"This year," she whispers. "This year, I'm sure of it."

"And…last year…the year before."

"Allah won't let us starve."

"But we are starving."

She reaches for him. "Children," she pleads. "Just children…"

"No," he repeats. "No, no. Not our children. I won't make my family suffer for them."

"They will…to Damascus? Impossible, they'll never…you know that they will…"

"So let them," he snaps. "Better them than my son. The world is harder than it was. We can't save every orphan the Christians leave behind."

"They're children," Fahima says, dully.

"Someone else's children," her husband argues. His tone hardens. His words harden, too. "I won't sacrifice my son for them. We'll give them some food in the morning, point them towards town."

"Town," Fahima repeats, not a little bitterly. "You know what welcome they'll find there."

"I do." The man leans toward her, urgently. His fingers rustle through the darkness, tucking the blankets in against the child. "Look at your son. Tell me it's worth risking his life to save another. Tell me he won't be even hungrier if we keep some stranger's child here. Fahima. Look at your son and tell me what you expect us to do."

Malik waits for her next argument, her next gust of air. But nothing comes, and when he finally dares crack an eyelid open he sees her bent over her child, stroking its pale face. "Darling one," she croons. Malik stays awake an hour more, willing the conversation to pick back up. But only silence meets him.

_-i-_

Dawn casts the world in red. Malik stands by the door, watching the sun watch him back. The cloth bag slung over his shoulder is heavy with the water jars, and with enough food to last another day or two. Their host tells him to look for the village, a few miles past the next hill. "Someone there might have something else to give," he says, but he says it without promise or hope. Fahima stays towards the back of the room. She glances at Malik every now at then, even manages to tell him faintly to "Stay on the road, it will lead you towards Damascus", but she won't look at Kadar. Not even once.

And by the time the sky has turned from red to blue, Malik and his brother are on the road again.

"They were nice," Kadar says in a mumble, speaking around the bread in his mouth. He holds a small piece in both hands and nibbles at it in contentment. "She kept smiling at me last night."

 _I want to hate them_ , Malik thinks. _Father, let me hate them._

"But their baby was so quiet, Malik. Maybe they should've fed it more."

 _I want to hate them._ But…

" _Kadar is your responsibility. It is your duty to keep him safe."_

"I wish they'd given us more bread. I'm still hungry. Why'd they give us so little? We told them we were traveling really far."

"They didn't have a choice," Malik says finally. "You have to help your own family first. They have to keep most of the food for their own kid, just like Mother used to save us meals before she fed anyone else."

"Oh." Kadar digests this. "They were really poor, right?"

He pictures the baby, silent and hollow-cheeked. "Yeah. Really poor."

"Are we really poor?"

"Just for now. Once I find work we'll be fine."

"Ok." Kadar finishes his bread, chewing thoughtfully. "Maybe when we're not poor we can give them some money or something. They were really nice. "

"They were," Malik agrees. "I'd like to thank them some day."

(And he would—he's sincere in his desire to help. But his father's words are still in his ears, and he knows now that he would let a hundred people starve, if doing so would guarantee his little brother one more meal.)

_-i-_

They reach the village around midday. A couple dozen decrepit huts, clustered around a narrow offshoot of the stream: it does not bring much of their old home to mind. The water is oddly brown and blocked in several places by garbage. About its banks lies mud, purple-brown and smelling foul. Half of the houses don't even look lived in. The ground has been baked into dusty flatness, with deep cracks from which wilting grasses sprout. There aren't any animals that Malik can see.

They stop at the first house anyway, though it looks in even worse repair than Fahima's; their current food supplies won't last long, and they desperately need whatever these villagers can spare. The dirt in front of the door has been bleached white by the sun, and if the weeds blocking that door are anything to judge by, there hasn't been much attempt at upkeep. Malik gives the cloth bag to Kadar for safekeeping and knocks, preparing his speech: travel—food—willingness to work. The door is pulled open by a man in prayer cap and beard…an image of Malik's father, which gives him hope. He gets halfway through his speech before the door slams shut again.

He stands there, bewildered. After a moment Kadar whispers, "What happened?"

The situation at the next hut is much the same. And the next. And the next. Several times no one even opens the door, though he can hear people moving about inside. The whole area smells rank, and the odor combined with the heat is making his head swim. What sort of place is this? Hadn't their father always spoken about the hospitality of their people? In Christian lands this door-slamming, ignoring-guests thing probably happens all the time, because what else could one expect from Templar places? In _Christian_ lands—so Malik has heard—people walk around naked and eat pig flesh. But here? His father had allowed guests when sick, when tired, and had been gracious to a fault each time. His father had spoken of it as a matter of honor, and his father was never wrong.

"Malik," Kadar says after the fifth failed attempt. "Maybe we should go."

"We just need some supplies," he growls out. "This is stupid. Let's try another house." But the next house, when they see it, is clearly abandoned and missing half its roof. "Maybe we should try on the other side of the stream." Kadar pulls on the edge of his tunic. "There's a bunch of houses over there we haven't stopped at yet…" Kadar tugs again. "What?" he asks finally, looking over his shoulder at his brother with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe," Kadar says again, "we should go." This time he points. Malik, still confused, looks up. And realizes the village hasn't been ignoring them after all.

A few feet behind them stands a cluster of three boys, maybe a year or two older than Malik. Though this village is undoubtedly their home, they look no less shabby for not having traveled weeks to get here: dirty tunics, dirty faces, hair hanging in clumps where it hasn't been shaved down to the skull. Each of the strange boys is lean in a stripped-down, malnourished sort of way. None of them look particularly friendly.

And all three are staring at them. Tailing them as they go from house to house.

"Ignore them," Malik mutters. "They're just trying to act tough." Boys in their own village used to gang up on strangers too, but in their village there were adults to control the situation. Not so in this strange desert hovel, apparently. He turns to look over the stream again. All they need is a little more bread, and then they can leave—

"Malik," Kadar yelps, and before Malik can react—before he can so much as turn back around—something sharp cracks against the back of his head and he stumbles forward. Kadar yelps again and darts forward to steady him on his feet. Stunned, he rocks back on his heels and puts a hand to the painful lump on his skull. His fingers come away splotched with red. Blood? He looks down and sees a rock by his feet, where there hadn't been a rock before.

Laughter breaks out from the group behind them. "They have rocks," Kadar whispers, and Malik wonders dazedly how he managed to miss that fact a moment ago.

He fights for courage. "What do you want?" he demands, which sends the village boys into another fit of snickering.

"Hey, beggar," one of them calls over. He's the tallest of the three, and the healthiest-looking. There's signs of his attempt at growing facial hair. "Hey, you piece of shit. Who said you could come here?"

"What?" Malik stares at them. They're speaking the same language, but he feels as disconnected now as he did with a Templar barking curses in a foreign tongue. "We're traveling. We're going to—"

"Who said you were allowed here?" another boy interrupts. This one has a face peppered with bruises and a runny nose. "Huh? You have to ask permission. Beggars can't just wander in like they _belong_."

There are newly-remembered swears aching on the tip of Malik's tongue, but the lump on his skull aches more. Kadar is clutching the back of his tunic again, eyes wide.

"Hey, beggar boy, we're talking to you." The first boy sounds less amused and more annoyed. "Be respectful of your betters!" he says, aping words he's obviously heard before. "You don't belong here. This village doesn't want beggar scum."

"Yeah," adds the second, "it's gross. Ugh!" and he waves a dramatic hand in front of his nose. "You stink! You'll make the whole place smell."

Malik bristles—he's done his best to keep himself and his brother clean, hasn't he? And what about these boys? They don't look much cleaner!

"Look at him staring," the second boy crows. "Idiot, don't you know how to talk?"

"He's a beggar," the third boy points out. This one, Malik notes, is barefoot and shirtless. "He's probably too dumb. Think he knows where he is? Look, they're both idiots. Hey, beggar, did your mother screw a camel? Is that how you were born?"

"Malik?" Kadar whispers.

"It's ok," he mutters. His voice wavers a bit. "Don't worry. We're going now."

"Listen, you son of a whore," says the first village boy. He uses nasty words with no sense of respect, as if he's been around them all his life. "We don't want your stink here. Understand? Or are you too dumb?"

Malik says, "We couldn't make your village smell any worse than it already does." He pauses, considers, then adds, "And you're the one with a whore for a mother," because it feels appropriate given the situation.

Then the first boy throws another rock. This one almost hits Kadar in the face.

"Piece of shit!" someone shouts. "No one wants beggar filth here."

"Fine," Malik hisses, thinking _none of those rocks better hit my brother_. "Fine, we're going. Alright? We'll leave—" and he turns around and there's another boy standing behind them, arms akimbo. His sneer isn't as worrying as the wiry strength visible in his limbs. Without looking Malik knows the other three are coming closer, too.

"Now where are you going?" the first boy says. "Because wherever it is, they don't want you there either."

"Don't be stupid. It's none of your business where we go."

The third one yells, "You can't talk to us like that!"

"I can't? I didn't know there were rules for talking to ugly donkeys." He puts a hand on Kadar's shoulder and turns him around. "Let's get going."

But the first boy throws another rock, aiming for just past them. "You can't go anywhere yet," he says, grinning strangely. "First you have to apologize for being so rude."

"Screw off," says Malik, tiredly.

"What was that? Did that sound like an apology?"

"What should we do now?" Kadar wants to know. "Can we go?"

Malik hesitates. He looks at his brother, who's still clutching their bag of food. Then he bends down and grabs the same rock that's already smeared with his blood. "Just start walking, ok?"

"Are…um…are they gonna let us?"

"They'll let you. Go back to the main stream and wait, I'll meet you there. Ok?"

"But I don't wanna go alone."

"Kadar, it's fine. I'll meet you there. Remember, you said you'd trust me."

His little brother looks unconvinced, but his feet move forward as if of their own concern. He glances at the fourth boy as he moves past him, equal parts shy and daring. "You'll catch up soon?" he asks.

"Really soon," Malik promises. Kadar nods and keeps walking.

The fourth boy does move to block his path. But then a blood-splattered rock cracks him in the shoulder and he whirls around, teeth bared in a snarl. All the village boys are geared into raging action now—all these twelve or thirteen year olds, hungry and angry and stuck in a bare part of the world. As Malik had guessed, none of them bother to chase after Kadar, already scurrying down the road. None of them bother when there's an easy target closer by.

Malik balls his hands into fists and waits.

_-i-_

The stars are out again this night. Neither clouds nor ceilings to block them from view. The sky is one thing the desert does well: little water, little food, but an endless breach of black and gold. Allah's beacons, all along the world from one edge to the other, waiting for those who have lost their way. Malik knows he is lost, but the beacons aren't helping. He's doing his best, but this desert is so wide. Sometimes it feels like he is walking in circles. Sometimes it feels like Damascus is merely a fragmented fever-dream.

Still, even in this dream there are solid things. Kadar, for one. Even at Malik's most confused he knows he will find his brother. Even if they stay in this strange sky-desert for the rest of their lives. There's comfort in the purpose: Malik fulfills his duty, keeps Kadar safe, and in return he's never as empty as he might otherwise become. If there's nothing else, there's the two of them. If everything else is ruined, this one thing will hold.

Kadar is waiting by the bank of the stream, at the slight widening stretch that ultimately splits in two. The hills block the ugly little village from view, and the chilly night-winds ripple at the water and at Kadar's sandy hair. Malik can see his brother crouched in strained uncertainty; he's made one of his protective piles of rocks, and occasionally drops one into the water by his feet.

"Hey," he calls, wincing. Kadar looks up and his face brightens. Malik makes his careful way over and sits down—still careful—with his back to the village, his front to the water. He's sitting in a patch of mud, but he doesn't really mind.

Kadar, he knows, must be bursting with curiosity, and it's impressive that he's able to wait even a few minutes before bursting out with, "I knew you were gonna meet me here, Malik. You said to wait and I did, see? No Templars or anything but I was ready for them if they showed up. Did you beat up all those boys? Their village really stunk, I bet you got them all. You shoulda. They shouldn't try to fight you, right, Malik? You won, right? I know you did. I know you're really tough."

"Sure," says Malik. He's glad that the stars aren't bright enough to really throw his aching body into clear view; he's glad Kadar can't see his blackening left eye, or his swollen jaw, or the ring finger he's pretty sure he broke throwing his first awkward punch. That finger hurts a lot…quite a bit of him hurts a lot, and if it wasn't for being an adult he'd probably be yowling for the rest of the night. It still sort of sounds like a good idea—Malik wouldn't mind throwing himself face-first in the mud and screeching until the throbbing stops.

"Did you win?" Kadar presses. "You didn't look scared at all. I wasn't scared _either_ , though, 'cause you weren't. I'm almost as brave as you. That stupid village. We don't even need their food, right? Bet it all tastes bad. I saved you some bread and cheese and I didn't touch it even though I'm pretty hungry because you were so brave. D'you want it? I saved a really big piece."

Malik isn't sure he can open his jaw wide enough to swallow bread, much less chew it, and anyway the thought of food is making him feel sick. "Maybe just some water," he manages, and Kadar eagerly pulls out one of their jars from the cloth bag.

"What _happened_?" his little brother demands once he's finished drinking. Ohh, the water is so sweet and cold… "How'd you get past them?"

"We fought a bit," says Malik, working his jaw with one filthy hand. He's more worried about the new rips in his tunic than the swelling in his finger, and isn't sure if that's wise. "One of them ran away when I bit his hand."

"You _bit_ him?" shrieks Kadar, delighted. Malik shrugs (and then regrets moving sore shoulders).

"Well, his hand was right there." He neglects to mention that both his own arms were being pinioned behind his back at the time, so biting was one of few options. "I kicked one of them in the face. Worked pretty well. They were all cursing a lot…an old man finally came outside and yelled at them, so they ran off. He didn't say anything to me, though."

"Huh." Kadar leans back, basking in his own awe. "You fought off four people, Malik."

"For a little while. They would've beaten me if that man hadn't shown up. I was getting tired…" Malik looks at the odd bend in his ring finger. "I'm not that great at fighting," he says quietly, mostly to himself. "I'd like to get better."

"So brave," sighs Kadar, oblivious.

Malik smiles, weary but not worn. There's water, and food saved for when the bruising along his ribs and stomach fades, and his brother's cheerful chatter. They're alone in a grimy, empty land, where even Allah and His teachings seem too remote to count. Are they any closer to Damascus than they were last month? Who knows. Too hard to say.

And yet there's a sort of solace here. And yet there's a sort of peace...


	5. Part One Chapter Four: A Garden Among the Flames

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably mention that I'm using only the main game's canon, and ignoring the side games (which I'm told are terrible). If I'm remembering right Revelations canon came out towards the middle of my writing, and Bowden canon (which is 90% ignored for reasons of _it's shitty canon_ ) towards the end. This fic isn't up-to-date with any major world changes post-that. If there even are any, I tell you, the AC universe has lost all cohesion and I don't understand how we're up to - what are we up to, game 37?
> 
> Chapter title was once again lovingly borrowed from Khalil Gibran. 
> 
> THE TOMATO CONTROVERSY HAS BEEN RESOLVED AS OF THIS POSTING (ON THIS SITE, ANYWAY). ALL HAIL.

Something of a pattern forms. The road begins to curve through more of a human-touched place, with stone houses clustering around ragged, rancid offshoots of the stream. Malik—whose eye was swollen for days, whose finger still aches at night—has learned his lesson well, and avoids the villages as best he can. Sometimes at night he can see lights and hear people, but banging on doors and asking for shelter is not an option any longer. They sleep out in the open, surrounded by sand and insects and stars, even with houses nearby. Fahima's hovel was the last bit of kindness Malik expects to see.

But their food runs out, again and again, and he can't keep Kadar going on water alone. So, when he has to, he leaves his brother secure behind a rock or tree and continues his desperate search. He gives the villages themselves wide berth in favor of lone houses on the outskirts, little mud huts with thatched roofs cowering under mountains fantastically high. When he finds these houses, he knocks, and gives his speech. Sometimes it works.

Malik isn't blind. For all that he is quick to describe himself as _traveler_ and not as _beggar_ , he knows what he looks and smells like. Those morning washings have fallen off; he just can't get his brother or himself as clean as he wants to, and anyway what's the point? There's no one to scold them, or tease them, or _care_. There's no one who will notice an extra layer of dirt.

In fact, it's when he's at his most disheveled that people seem most inclined to give him anything. Stale bread, fruit gone soft, slivers of suspicious-smelling meat: Malik takes all of it, driven by his hunger and the hunger of his brother. He hates a lot of things about this new life, but the uncertainty most of all—he never knows when he'll be able to go back to Kadar with food in hand, and when he'll have to go back with only promises of empty bellies and restless nights. Kadar looks so nakedly overjoyed every time food appears...it turns Malik's stomach, especially since he almost never comes back with enough for both of them to share.

"What about you?" Kadar will ask, mouth crammed full. "Aren't you gonna have any?"

"Oh," Malik always says, "I'm not so hungry. The people who gave me this let me sit for a meal with them while I was there."

And Kadar accepts this. He hasn't yet realized that his brother is an expert liar.

_-i-_

"A lot of people on the road today," Kadar comments. He's scurrying past Malik, kicking at rocks, energetic after a decent breakfast. Malik lifts his weary head to consider the road, which has narrowed as it winds its way against the side of a mountain. The desert sands have been left behind in favor of scrubland, all stubby bushes and rock. The mountain rises to their right; to their left is a great ravine, and the stream curling below. The waterway's broadened into more of a river, but there's no way to reach it. Malik's mouth aches with thirst, but he refuses to pull out one of the water jars. Who knows when he'll be able to find a place to refill?

"A lot of people," Kadar says again, darting ahead to see around the next bend.

"Don't get too far ahead," Malik warns. The road has gotten more crowded over the last few days, it's true: men in dusty robes, women draped in black with only the eyes left clear. Every now and then someone will ride past on a horse, and everyone walking will press back against the mountainside to let him pass. Malik always clamps a firm hand on his brother's shoulder when this happens. The other travelers keep to themselves, and no one's sharing any food, so after the first excited day he's stopped caring about their encroaching onto the normal world. He just follows the crowd, which is following the road, which is going…somewhere…

Kadar is back with his report. "Looks like the road starts going back down towards the water," he says, "and there are stables coming up. Hey, maybe we can ride to Damascus!"

"You know we can't afford a horse."

"But maybe…oh! Malik, look, we're so high up. I can barely see the _ground_."

"Stay away from the edge. You'll fall."

"Will not. I'm being careful."

"Stay away from the edge, Kadar."

" _Fine_. I'm gonna go see what's up ahead."

"You just went to see…" Malik lets his voice drop away. His little brother is so energetic today, and yet all _he_ wants to do is sleep. The ground is parched dry, and even if they could get near the river there's not enough mud to soften anything. No place to sleep around here, but rest is all he has on his mind. He's trying to watch Kadar, to make sure the six-year-old's fancies don't send him scampering right off the cliff, but his head keeps sagging forward of its own will. His eyes, dark-rimmed with exhaustion the last time he saw his reflection, keep losing focus. The world splits into fuzzy brown chunks. He strains to keep up, legs pumping hard to get nowhere at all.

He's just so _tired_.

(Kadar had a decent breakfast. Malik didn't eat at all.)

"Malik?"

He blinks. Was he sleeping standing up just now? Kadar is back, looking at him a touch uncertainly, and the other people part around them without comment or glance. Malik feels incredibly shaky on his throbbing feet.

"Are you ok?" Kadar asks.

"I'm fine. Just tired from walking uphill."

"Maybe you should eat something. You look kinda pale."

There isn't any food in their bag, Malik knows without looking. "I'm not really hungry. I ate at the last place. The one that gave us that bit of onion." He didn't eat at the last house, and no one gave him anything. The slops for the family goat were sitting in the open, so he helped himself after the door was slammed in his face.

"Are you sure? You never eat with me anymore."

"I told you why, remember? I usually get asked to sit for meals when I go. Like how Father used to do if someone came by during dinner." When was the last time he ate anything? It feels like it's been _days_ …

"But you…" Kadar hesitates. Worry clouds his open face. "You don't _look_ good."

"Don't be rude." Malik gives his brother a gentle push. "Keep walking. The path's too narrow to stop here."

He waits until Kadar is a little ways ahead before following his own advice. He lifts his foot up. Puts his foot down. Catches his breath. Repeats. Wonders in a distant way at the ringing in his ears.

His head bobs down again. Brown dirt. Brown rocks. Brown tufts of grass. All the brown is making him dizzy, so he lifts his head. But the people around him are just as brown, in their robes and scarves and frowns. The water below is dark with silt, or runoff, or something. Something. Where did Kadar go? Right, up ahead. Near the sheep pen, only he shouldn't be over there because he isn't yet ten. Father will be irritated.

Maybe, Malik thinks, he could stop for a second. Not long. Maybe he could stop and take a quick nap against this—what is it?—this mountain, for a bit. He's _awfully_ tired. Not even hungry, really; between food and sleep he'd like the latter more. A quick nap and then it's off to Damascus.

"Kadar," he sighs. Can't sleep yet. Can't sleep 'till he's caught up to his brother. That's the rule. He's got to keep his brother safe. Then he can sleep. After he knows where Kadar went. After that he can—

_No, damn it._

Malik bites down on his lower lip, hard. Hard enough that his lip tears open and starts to bleed. The sting and the salt snap him awake. His head starts throbbing in time with his mouth, but he's more concerned with avoiding that bizarre fog. He fades out again and he'll be the one to stagger off the cliff.

He can't fade now. He has a job to do. Malik shakes his head to clear it, and then hurries to catch up.

_-i-_

The road meanders up the mountainside awhile. Then it slants downwards, and the A-Sayf siblings find themselves walking between high walls of grey rock. There are occasional houses, stables, old guard towers with eagles nesting at the tops. The crowds thin and thicken, seemingly at random. At one point they find themselves alone on the road for the first time in days, and just as Malik is wondering where everyone vanished to so quickly, he sees the troop of soldiers coming towards them.

Fortunately there's a thicket of weeds, blanketed by the mountain's shadow. He yanks his brother by the arm and pulls them both into the dirt: they cower there, silent, until the sound of boots striking gravel fade away. The soldiers were wearing brown shirts, Malik notes, and speaking Arabic—but still. They were _soldiers_ , who knows from what side. What _are_ the sides? Malik has never been able to figure that out, in all the weeks of roaming. Either way, soldiers are trouble. Kadar has a white-knuckled grip on his shirtfront, and neither one comments on Malik's having to pry each finger loose, one by one.

They dust themselves off and keep walking.

The road lifts again. Now the river—for it is unquestionably a river at this point, and a large one too—is back to being far below them, cutting through the peaks and valleys. It had been such a tiny little thing in their village! But here, wherever _here_ is, it has been given power.

Kadar spots a cluster of stone ruins around the road's next bend. Old archways, worn smooth and featureless by rain and wind, loom overhead. There's more shade here, more grass and actual dirt than sand, and when Malik looks up he sees thick clouds moving overhead, beginning to turn grey. He frowns. Rain will fill their water jars, but they don't have anywhere to escape to when it comes.

His stomach roars. There'd been some food a night ago—no, two nights ago—three? Whatever night, there'd been a group of travelers, boisterous and maybe drunk, not that Malik knows the signs of such an immoral act or anything. They'd been friendly in their loudness, in their insistence that traveling was safer the larger the group, and they dragged the brothers into their circle as the sun sank behind the mountain. "You two," one man had slurred, "only haven't been robbed because you've nothing for anyone to steal."

But one of his companions had stared darkly at Kadar and murmured, "Don't be so sure of that. Be grateful no slavers saw you."

Malik hadn't been sure what that meant, but knew he didn't like it, so he'd said hotly that he was keeping his brother safe and doing a fine job of it, thanks to Allah above. The strangers had all laughed, but it'd been friendly still, which was rare these days. As rare as food, which they'd been equally generous with, giving large potions of a greasy stew to both boys. "It's disgusting, though," someone had shouted, giving the cook a shove. Which was then returned. Which spread into all manner of dirty jokes. Malik understood just enough of those jokes to clamp his hands over a protesting Kadar's ears, prompting more laughter.

With the stars sparkling overhead one of the men produced a small bottle, filled with a sloshing liquid that looked like water but smelled far worse. The men all drank from it, despite the smell, and Malik turned down the offer only after a significant and uncertain pause. Even if those men had been drinkers, and therefore sinners risking Allah's wrath—they weren't _evil_ , even with all that. Malik remembers his father's strict following of the Laws as set by the Prophet. He himself has been shown only one path towards righteousness, and yet the kindest people he's met in days are clearly out on different roads. It's something to think about, Malik decides, when his head is clear enough for heavy thoughts.

All in all it was a comfortable night, and for the first time in a long while he'd gone to sleep with a full belly and without worry over meals, or lack thereof. In the morning the men had gone their way and the brothers had gone theirs, and Malik had been genuinely dejected to say goodbye.

He is growing sick of saying goodbye.

Added to that is the fact that a full meal, as desperately needed as it had been, only served to waken his hunger come next morning. His dreams of food had been oddly absent lately; Malik found himself tired and disinterested, even in food, even in Damascus. Now his stomach has been reminded of what it isn't being given, and it aches to make up for lost time.

One of those hunger pains causes him to stop underneath one of the stone arches, chest heaving as he fights for breath. Kadar has gone ahead again, and he struggles to hide his weakness so that his brother won't be alarmed upon return. The darkening sky brings with it a cool breeze and Malik tilts his head to catch it. He's bedraggled and lost and probably starving, but he can still take comfort in an errant breeze. If he closes his eyes he can almost pretend this is home.

"Malik! Brother, hey…"

Malik forces his eyes open. Kadar is back, dancing a bit on the heels of his feet, nervousness or excitement shining in his eyes. "Malik," he says, "there're more stables coming up, and—and then there's a village…"

"That explains all the extra people on the road. Give me a chance to catch my breath and we'll go around."

"No, but, um," Kadar is still dancing. "I think this is a big village. It's all fenced-in."

"What, like a city?" _Sayyid_ Hamid described the great stone walls surrounding Damascus once: impenetrable, impossible to scale, tall enough and thick enough to block any attack. Could this be…?

"Yeah, and it's got the mountains all around it. The road goes right through. I don't think we _can_ go around. Um." Kadar hesitates. "There're guards."

Malik brightens. Walls and guards—this _must_ be Damascus! "Come on," he tells his brother, and then despite his hunger and his exhaustion he's half-running, running to see towers stabbing at the sky…

He sees the stables first, old wooden things with a couple horses grazing out front. Then he sees the walls, and they…aren't stone. They're made of a reddish wood that rises high to sharp points, and while they look sturdy they aren't _wide_ enough to mask an entire city. Malik slows, feet scuffing against the dirt, and feels so tired he wants to collapse. Kadar stays by his side, looking every inch a nervous colt caught between running forward and away. "See?" he asks. "Those guards are wearing white, though. Is this Damascus? Are they Templars?"

"They're too dark-skinned to be Templars. But this isn't Damascus. Just another village, I guess."

Kadar sighs. "Are they gonna throw rocks at us again?"

"If they do we'll throw them back. Come on." And Malik takes his brother by the hand. They follow the crowds up to the wooden gates, and then through their narrow opening. On each side of that opening stand guards, dressed in odd clothing Malik doesn't recognize, hands resting on the hilts of the swords strapped to their waists. The robes, he sees as they pass by, are tailored differently than those of the Templars; they're tied at the waist with red sashes overlaid with leather, layered over darker breeches. The men all have a strange silver triangle strung about the chest. They wear hoods— _cowls_ , Malik corrects himself, dragging the word from some crevice of his mind—that jut over their faces in sharp points. And they have hard eyes, emotionless eyes, which slide over the crowds passing through. Malik almost expects a hand to clamp down on his shoulder, thin useless beggar-boy that he is now, but the guards allow him to enter the village unhampered. With not a little relief he steers his brother into what is surely another tiny, wretched-smelling collection of huts.

Then he stops, astounded. The crowds move around them and at his side he hears Kadar gasp. This is not Damascus. But this is not just another village. This place is… _amazing_.

It lies wrapped about the mountain, the ground smoothed away in layers to allow the road's passage. At the first tier, where they stand now, are houses—dozens and dozens of houses, some as tall as three stories. It's a _poor_ town, from the looks of the people roaming the dirt streets and the musty scent in the air, but still: dozens upon dozens of houses! Wood, mud, and clay buildings stacked next to each other form narrow alleyways and hide tiny courtyards.

The road offshoots several times, and Malik cannot follow all its twists and turns. His own village was so much smaller…

He takes a hesitant step forward. There are more guards standing nearby, and as he looks around he sees soldiers at almost every stretch. They all stand with hands at their hips, waiting…though waiting for what, he can't hope to guess. They all wear the same wide-and-red robes, but some have grey cowls and some white; some have markings about the chest that others lack. Beyond the guard post he sees a second part of the village built a layer above the rest, on a ridge of flat earth that protrudes out over the first tier. The path splits to use the gentler slopes on either side, and meets again in a wide overlook paved with stone. At its very tip waves a bright red flag decorated with patterns he doesn't recognize.

The villagers dress and act normal enough, moving through the alleyways as if they belong. There are wooden stands set up in grassy crevices, bare bits of beam showing from roofs where the thatch has fallen away, and benches crowded with gossips. But there are too many guards here for this to be a normal enough place. As Malik stares about him he sees other men, mostly older, who wear the same white outfits but layer them further still, with baggy, black robes covering much of what's underneath. These men, and there are quite a few of them, stand out as Other even to Malik's uninformed eyes. Most of them are walking up or down the main road, as if the village itself was not their destination. Their robes are more decorated than the stripped-down version worn by the guards; red and white threads loop about the hemlines in complicated patterns.

"Wow," Kadar says, breaking the silence. "It's busy. Is this a market?"

"Let's keep going. I want to see where this road leads."

They climb the gentle rise to the second tier. Here the road splits again, into smaller sections. One of them seems more crowded than the rest, and Malik surmises from watching the state of those upon it that this is the road that will lead them from the village. But most of the black-robed men are taking another path, in the opposite direction, and for some reason Malik wants to know where they're going. So he points Kadar in that direction and wanders deeper into wherever they are.

The second layer is as crowded with houses as the first, and the view below of the lower village is impressive. The taller buildings up here are mostly stone, and roof gardens with colorful old rugs and curtains sprout off the flat roofs. But the third layer, up another rise, is much smaller and has only one high, bulky building at the edge. On the left-hand-side is the mountain; on the right, past the building, a field falls abruptly into a sheer drop. Malik glances in this direction and is taken aback by the otherworldly beauty of the sight: far, far below, the river so wide as to almost seem a sea, surrounded by massive hills flecked brown and green. The sun glints off the water whenever it pokes past the clouds.

"Wow," Kadar says again. He takes a curious step forward, but Malik pulls him back.

"Careful," he says, needlessly. The cliff is blocked by more guards; in fact, there are guards everywhere along this road, standing stiff and watchful. There aren't as many normal villagers here, and when Malik looks behind him he notices that the main town is blocked from sight by curves and hills. He considers turning around, but there are three black-robed men still following the road. So he takes a few more steps in the direction of those men, and the road curves around another bend and starts to climb upwards but Malik doesn't follow it because—

because…

"Oh," Kadar gasps. "Oh, _wow_." And all Malik can do is stare dumbly and nod his head.

Because the road continues upwards, and far above them, past a few more buildings and a massive wall with a metal gate, there sits a _palace_.

Finally Malik is confronted by towers that scrape the sky. Finally he witnesses such an impossible thing made real. It makes him dizzy, looking that far up into the air and still seeing stone. But the palace is more than just towers: there are domes, balconies, walls with carvings he can see even from far away. It's all made of grey stone, flecked with white-and-red flags, and it sits atop the mountain, cloaked with storm clouds in a cowl of its own.

"It's a castle," Kadar marvels. "Does a king live there? Does Allah?"

"Probably not Him," Malik says absently. He can't tear his eyes from the view: the palace is so _big_! There are so many parts!

"Must be a king," Kadar decides. "There's so many guards and that big gate and stuff. I bet even _Sayyid_ Murtada would want to live there. Maybe they'll let us stay."

"I don't think so." The talk of guards, and the growing chill to the air, remind Malik that they cannot stand here gawking, castle from heaven or no. "Come on," he says, forcing himself to turn a shoulder to that gorgeous haven, "Let's go back down to the main part and find somewhere to wait out the rain. Might be an inn or something. If I offer to wash dishes maybe they'll give us something to eat."

"Lamb," Kadar says dreamily. "And milk."

Malik steers his brother back down the path. He says gently, "Bread and water for now. Maybe some stuffed vine leaves or _fattah_."

" _Fattah_ with meat!"

They make their way back down the winding road, moving through crowds that ignore them completely. But Malik can still feel eyes on his back, and knows that the guards are watching them at every step.

"Where are we, Malik?" Kadar asks. He stops by a row of clay houses, which lean against each other like a row of grizzled and drunken old men. They are tiny huts, with bits of wooden beam sticking free from the crumbling clay, but they look lived in, and someone's attempted a flower garden in the available space. Against the last house in the row is a bench; two women sit there, faces completely hidden behind yards of fabric, chatting in low voices. Their dresses are fraying and their headscarves the sort of faded grey that comes from over-washing, but still they both seem to fit into this place of earth and wonder. A third woman steps out from a narrow passageway further down the road, hips swaying in that strange woman's way that allows her to keep steady the large pot on her head. One of the seated woman calls out a cheerful, " _Salaam_!" as the third one passes by. In front of the houses, on the other side of the tapered road, the cliffs fall into the village's first level. The women, even seated, can watch the cluttered roofs of the houses below.

It feels like home here, Malik realizes. It feels like his lost village, meager and old and for its inhabitants, the whole world. It just so happens that this world includes layers and mountain castles.

"Where are we?" Kadar asks again. He's staring at one of those red-white flags, which is waving in the breeze from the other side of the road.

Malik frowns at it. There's a strange symbol printed there, not quite a triangle but not quite anything else, either. Under it are more strange symbols, but these at least he can recognize as words, clumped together as they are. Not words that mean anything, though. He squints at them a bit, more for pretense, not wanting to lose face in front of his little brother. The shapes do not magically reform into something recognizable, something with reason, and he hadn't expected them to do so. He can't read, after all.

"We're…" He glances around. "We're near Damascus. I think."

"Are we lost?"

"We can't be lost if, uh, we know where we are."

"But I don't know where we are."

"I do."

"Yah, 'cause you're ten." Kadar nods knowingly. "So, where…?"

"Like I said, near Damascus." Malik glances around again. Then he points. "We're by that tree," he says firmly. Kadar pauses a moment, considering this. Then:

"That's not really a tree, though, Malik."

"Of course it's a tree. You've seen trees before, haven't you?"

"But trees are tall. That looks kinda like a shrub."

"No, it's a tree."

"But it's so small!"

"So is your _face_!"

Another pause. Then:

"Um," Kadar says, confused. "What?"

"You'll understand when you're older," Malik says, lofty and wise. Kadar is duly awed.

"Wow," he says. "I hope so."

_-i-_

They wander back down to the base of the village and stand next to a makeshift market by the wooden fence: a jumble of wooden stands and items laid out for purchase on the ground. Small crowds drift about the area, haggling and hawking in turn. Malik is comforted. His own village had a market, much the same as this, and he knows the rules for such a place. It's nice to know there are solutions again—there's bread to be bought if hungry, cloth to be bought if cold, small trinkets and good luck charms if in need of some extra salvation. Malik ignores that last one, because he knows his father had always considered such things to be superstitious, blasphemous nonsense, but the first thought grabs his attention right away. People are selling vegetables, spices, various fried things. There's even a butcher's stand, and the smell of roasted meat covers the whole area in a teasing ambrosia-fog. That smell alone is enough to make Malik dizzy; one glance at Kadar's open mouth proves that his little brother feels much the same.

Some meat would be _wonderful_. But the butcher isn't likely to give it away for nothing. Malik frowns, glancing up at the graying sky. They still need to find shelter before the storm hits, though finding it won't be much easier than finding food. He tries to sift through the options, to choose wisely as his father might have done. But he's been trying to do that since the village burned and it hasn't gotten any easier. Malik doesn't know what his father would have done in his place, or whether his choices have been right. There's been no one to tell him if and where he's gone wrong. All he knows is that his father, smart as he was, would have been able to do _something_ …but his father, smart as he was, is dead. There's only Malik. And Malik is tired of being hungry.

"Wait here," he says to Kadar. "Don't move 'til I come back."

His firm steps cover the patches of grass and dirt as he stalks close to the stands, circling around not the butcher but a small stand a ways past, sitting at the little rise where the road begins to tilt upwards. This stand is nothing more than some warped boards nailed together, and a good gust of wind could probably take it to pieces. But Malik likes the sight of the produce jumbled there: green goat horn peppers, cucumbers, bunches of parsley and thyme. Garlic is strung about the sides.

He waits, not wanting to look too noticeable or too eager, knowing he's marked as a beggar even as he pretends to be a local kid. The man behind the stand is tall and peaked: his face marred by blotches, his eyebrows knit into a tense frown over eyes caught in a permanent squint. Apparently he's trying to watch over both the vegetables and a small collection of clay pots and vases, sitting on an old blanket next to the stand. Intermingled with the pots are smaller baskets, made of straw, and these are drumming up enough interest that the seller keeps having to turn his back on the food. Malik considers grabbing a bulb of garlic while the man is distracted, but he hasn't forgotten the guards. He knows they're watching him lurk, and twists a greasy lock of hair between his fingers in an awkward attempt at looking unconcerned.

The wind blows against the exposed skin on the back of his neck, and he shivers. The air tastes even stronger of rain, which he'd be delighted for if the mere thought of the potential drenching didn't make him want to cough. He _can't_ get sick. He can't let _Kadar_ get sick. But where are they going to hide from the rain? The people of this village haven't driven them out yet, are apparently at least tolerant of unkempt strangers in their midst, but that's as far as the courtesy extends. No one is offering them a place to stay, a fire to gather around. The vegetable seller sees Malik gazing hungrily at his stand and scowls before turning away.

 _Dammit._ _Son of a bitch._ Malik is glad he is learning to curse. The foul words fit their surroundings so well…

"Malik? Could we buy a cucumber, maybe?"

He turns in surprise to see Kadar standing at his shoulder, looking at the vegetables and fidgeting around. "I told you to wait over there," he snaps. "You're distracting me."

Kadar says, "I know but."

"You have to listen to me, Kadar. You said that you would!"

"I know but."

"Allah _says_ that the younger brother must obey the older. How can I watch out for you if you never listen?" He's angrier than he should be, and he knows that, but he's been standing here being ignored by everyone but the wind, unable to help his brother, unable to help _himself_ , and now Kadar's watching him mess everything up and that's _horrible_ …

"So just stay where I told you to stay," he shouts. "Just stay there and behave."

Kadar hangs his head. "I will," he mumbles, "but I wanted to give you my coins first."

"Your what? What coins?"

Kadar holds out a grubby hand, his dirty fingernails tapping against the thin metal of the two coins he's clutching. Malik stares as his brother offers them up: even put together the silver things aren't worth all that much, but still. Just seeing money again reminds him of home, of his mother, of the way she would press a coin into his palm and tell him what to fetch from the market. _And be careful how they charge you_ , she'd always say. _You're not bartering with old junk._

"Where did you get those?" he manages. A nasty thought strikes him—did his brother steal them out of someone's pocket, someone's robes? He tries to imagine fighting off this village's hundred guards, all hungry for Kadar's thieving hands, and winces.

But Kadar looks unconcerned. He smiles a touch uncertainly at the coins, and holds them out again for Malik to take. "Someone gave them to me," he says. "One of the men with the black robes. I was waiting for you just like you told me to, I _was_ , promise. But then this man saw me and gave me those. I dunno why. He handed them to me and told me to be brave and, uh, go with Allah, and something about protecting the inno-, uh, the innocent. I dunno who _they_ are but I didn't tell him that 'cause I thought maybe you could use the money to get some food, only I didn't want to move because you told me not to. But I kinda want a cucumber, Malik. Do you think that would be ok even if I moved?"

He looks anxiously at his big brother's incredulous expression. "I didn't move much. And I think we're going with Allah already so it's ok. We are, aren't we? 'Cause if we are then maybe we could get some cucumbers. And then when we find the innocent we can give them a cucumber too."

Malik takes the two coins from Kadar and studies them. They're old, flecked with dirt and sweat, carved with words he can't read. But he knows how much they're worth: enough for plenty of vegetables, and maybe even a couple of those fried meat-on-stick things being sold a few stalls down.

"Can we?" Kadar fidgets again. "I'm hungry."

"We can get a bunch of cucumbers," Malik says, still stunned. He looks at his brother, all dirt and torn clothing and face stretched thin from hunger, and can't help but burst into laughter. He feels half-crazed, and if Kadar's expression is anything to go by he sounds it as well, but still the laughter spills from his cracked lips in shrill peals. All this time he's been trying to keep Kadar clean, and yet now that he looks like the homeless urchin he actually is, people are giving him money!

 _He makes a good beggar_ , Malik thinks, not necessarily pleased, still laughing in a manic sort of way. _No one's giving me anything. I guess I look too old._ But Kadar is still young, and the stresses of his new life aren't yet enough to dull the shine of those wide eyes. The lines newly creasing his face only add to that hapless look of his. Malik, calmed to a low giggling now, wonders how much money they'd make if he planted his brother on a street corner and told him to look happy. _Even Fahima was willing to starve for him…_

"Ok," he says, reaching out to ruffle Kadar's hair with one hand, the other clenched hard around the coins. "I'll go buy us some food."

"I helped, right? Even if I'm not ten yet?"

"You helped," Malik promises, hearing the echo to his words. "You helped a lot." And Kadar smiles with pure, untouched pride.

There's a line at the vegetable seller's now. An old man moves gnarled fingers over the produce in careful thought. Malik is careful too, watching as the man selects two onions, three cucumbers, and a large bundle of some wispy green spice he doesn't recognize. For this purchase he hands the seller two coins of the type Malik is clutching. He sighs with relief. He'll definitely be able to afford a couple cucumbers, then, and some onions as well. Maybe even a juicy, spicy pepper if he haggles well. Hope—and raw starvation—rise in his chest.

The old man finishes and moves away from the stand in a tangle of brown robes. Malik steps up, struck somber by the importance of the selection. What to buy? Are cucumbers really the best use of the money, or will they get more out of one large pepper and a hunk of cheese? He could try a different stand, pick up a loaf of bread and a bunch of dates. Could he even afford a pot? Then he'd only need some chickpeas and oil to boil them in, and even the stalest bread would do for dipping.

Then again, he's never cooked anything before. Maybe he should move to the other side of the main road, where a man is selling large bowlfuls of a fragrant stew, oil floating to the surface of a broth thick with beans. He looks at the coins in his hand again, biting at his lower lip.

The seller watches him with his face skewed sourly. His hands, marred with the same light blotches as his face, are pressed to his hips, and he scowls at Malik's unwashed, unfamiliar face. "Hurry up and choose, boy," he says.

" _Salaam_ ," Malik says absently, lost in his deliberations. One onion and two large peppers? Three potatoes and one onion? Finally he decides on four cucumbers and a small, shriveled onion. He chooses the fattest, greenest cucumbers and hands his coins to the seller. But before he can turn away from the stand with the food nestled in his arms, the seller brings one hand down hard against the wood of his stall. The coins fall from his grasp to land among the vegetables.

"Not enough," the man says. "You need double for all that."

Malik stares up at him. "It's a small onion," he says, in case the seller wasn't aware.

But the man shakes his head. "Not enough," he says again. "Cucumbers cost more than this."

"That last man bought even more for the same price. I saw him." Malik clutches at the produce in his hands. The onion's pungent odor is giving him a fresh headache.

"That was him. He's a man of good standing and his price is different. You're just trash off the street with stolen coins."

"They're not stolen! I saw how much you charged that man and I gave you the same amount."

"I'm not going to haggle with you, boy. You can go sit in the gutter and eat shit for all I care."

"We _need_ this," Malik says. Did people in his village ever rob strangers in such a blatant way? "I paid a fair amount for what I'm taking. It's a _small_ onion—"

"If you don't shut up and pay me what I'm owed I'll call the guards," the seller threatens. "I won't have the likes of you making off with what I deserve."

Malik hesitates. His hands are trembling with anger, but the man's threat is all too real. Slowly—each slight movement wrenching him open—he drops the two smallest cucumbers back onto the pile. "Is that enough?" he demands.

"Watch your mouth or I'll take it all back. Were you raised by dogs that you don't treat your elders with respect?"

Malik's eyes widen, then narrow. "Is that enough, _Sayyid_?" he asks, as polite as he can manage. His cheeks flush red with shame as the seller smirks and extends a hand. Unbelievably, he waits for Malik—who's trying not to drop his remaining two cucumbers and onion—to pick up the silver coins from the stand and put them back in his grasp, though both his hands are free.

Still flushing with embarrassment and impotent fury Malik moves away from the stall, trying to console himself over what's left. It's enough for a meal, and Kadar will be happy enough. He motions his brother over, hands him the larger cucumber and keeps the smaller one for himself. The onion he puts away for later, in case no actual dinner is found.

"This is good," Kadar says, though he's yet to take a bite. Instead he turns the cucumber around in his hands, studying it, making it last. "If we find more money can we get more?"

"I'll buy fresh vegetables every day," says Malik. _Though from a different stand_ , he adds silently, and turns to glare at the vegetable seller behind them. The man doesn't notice, distracted as he is by a customer annoyed at the remaining choice of cucumbers.

"You're charging _that_ much for these ugly things?"

The seller throws out his arms in protest. "I have to make enough to survive. Can I control a bad harvest?"

"You can control your own prices, can't you? For these you want to charge so much? And for these peppers? They've gone brown. Am I a king that I can afford to throw away money? Listen, every time I come here you overcharge me but I've never said anything because at least the quality is good. But maybe I'll find someone else with vegetables worth that much coin."

"Not my fault," the seller whines. "Some urchin bought up the best of my stock just now."

"Which isn't _my_ fault," the irate customer replies, and moves to another stall. The seller grumbles, smacks at the wooden counter with his palm, looks up and sees Malik watching him. Just like that, he becomes incensed.

"Urchin boy," he bellows, coming around from behind his stand and storming towards Malik in long strides. "Thief, give those vegetables back." Malik is caught off guard, managing only to step in front of his confused little brother. The vegetable seller points a long, hairy finger in his face. "Don't think you can steal from me! Give those back or I'll beat you senseless."

"I paid for them," Malik says, slowly since he's afraid he might stutter. But the words find their way, clear and true, and Malik is left marveling at the uses of his clever tongue. "I didn't steal anything. You took my money. If you want the vegetables back, give me my coins back first."

"Your money?" the seller roars. "The money you stole, you mean. Why should I give it back to you? I'm not about to reward a thief!"

"That money wasn't stolen. It's mine to do with as I want."

"Little liar. Stealing money and trying to steal my vegetables!"

"I didn't steal anything!"

"Give me back my vegetables and maybe I won't call the guards on your thieving head."

"Malik didn't steal anything," Kadar pipes up from behind Malik's shoulder. "Someone gave me the coins and I gave them to him."

The seller turns his glare onto the younger brother now. "Someone _gave_ them to you? You rooted them out of someone's pocket, you mean! Beggar filth with no sense of…" Then his eyes fall on the cucumber in Kadar's hands. "Ah! The biggest one!" he cries. "You rotten little bastard, stealing my best things…" He reaches out with his hairy hand and grabs for the vegetable.

Malik smacks that hand away before it can come anywhere near his brother. The vegetable seller, in the next instant, smacks him across the face.

For a minute, no one reacts. Malik can hear the other man's rough breathing even as he rubs his sore cheek in mute surprise. He's aware that a crowd has formed around them, but the stinging of the slap distracts him from looking around. Then Kadar drops the cucumber and suddenly has one of his many rocks aimed and ready. "Don't hit Malik," he shouts, and throws the pebble. It bounces off the seller's shoulder, breaking the shocked pause.

"You bastard," the seller snarls again, and moves to grab him, but Kadar dances just out of reach, another pebble at the ready.

"You're the bastard," Malik says furiously. "We didn't do anything to you."

"Thieves! I'll call the guards…!"

"No need." At the deep voice, both the seller and Malik turn in surprise. There really isn't a need to call the guards, because the guards have already found them: two of those soldiers in their strange white uniforms, one young and missing a few teeth, the other older and heavily scarred. Malik risks a glance around, and notes that the crowd has drawn back a respectful step. The vegetable seller drops his gaze to the ground. Malik, tired and sore and disgusted, stares at the newcomers without bothering to flinch.

"Well?" the younger guard says. His cowl, a musty grey, drapes over his face, hiding much of it from view. "You're disrupting the market."

The seller rallies himself: "These little shits stole from me."

"We didn't steal _anything_ ," Malik says hotly. "I paid him for the food. The coins are still at his stall!"

"Those coins were stolen."

"No, they weren't. Someone gave them to my brother."

"I saw him eyeing up my stand earlier," says the seller. "Obviously didn't have a coin to his name. Then ten minutes later he's back, and mysteriously he has a couple! He's a thief, I know he is, I saw him try to take more vegetables than he could afford."

"You're a liar," Malik says, "and the son of a dog."

"You see?" the other man cries, "Foul language, stealing, and—and the brat hit me with a rock!"

'"Cause you hit Malik," Kadar murmurs, but the seller talks right over him in his righteous indignation.

"Is this the sort of protection Al Mualim offers us? Does he protect foul-mouthed criminals who harm innocent people? Filthy beggars skulking around, stealing my produce and throwing rocks-!"

"Alright, enough," the younger guard says abruptly. He shoots the other guard a disgusted look, though Malik isn't sure if it's disgust at him, the seller, or the whole ridiculous situation. "Go back to your stand. We'll handle this."

"You should cut off his hand," the seller offers, though he begins to back up even as he talks.

"Those are our coins," Malik says. "Make him give them back to us."

"Enough," the guard says again, and Malik realizes with a nasty lurch that the soldiers are going to side with the vegetable seller, that they're going to believe his word because he belongs here and the A-Sayf brothers do not. "You can't just walk around throwing rocks at people," the guard says.

The older guard sighs, shakes his head. His cowl, a clean white, slides low over his face as well. "We should tell the Master," he says.

"Right," says the younger one. "We'll take them up there now." And he reaches over to grab at Kadar's shoulder, fingers digging into skin as he starts to drag him close—

Malik doesn't remember grabbing the rock and he doesn't remember throwing it, but suddenly the guard is staggering back with one hand clamped to the side of his face. A quiet gasp echoes about the watching crowd. The older guard makes a grab for Kadar, but the boy darts away, back to his safe position behind his brother. Malik grabs another stone; he knows without looking that Kadar's rearmed himself as well.

"Damn!" The younger guard moves his hand away, letting blood stream unhampered down his face. "What is a street urchin doing with that sort of aim?"

There's a nervous titter from the crowd. Even the older guard has to hide a smile, despite his comrade's flushing scowl. "They're only children. Perhaps you need to learn to duck, Brother," he suggests. Family? But they look nothing alike.

The younger guard scowls even deeper. "Get over here," he growls at Malik, and makes another grab in his direction. But another rock sends him leaping quickly, with a barely-smothered yelp. (Malik chose a rather large one the second time). "What in Allah's name!" he protests. "Here, quit laughing and go get him yourself!"

"Yes, yes," says the older guard, still chuckling. He moves forward…and a second later all but dances back to avoid his own skull being cracked open. The crowd pushes closer, interested. Malik scoops up another rock and stands watching them all, defiant. Even if those men are armed with swords.

"Like a wild dog," the younger guard breathes in frustration. "Can't get too close or he'll bite!"

"He isn't so fierce, not at his age. And look how thin they both are."

"Oh, yes? And that is why you're staying oh-so-carefully out of his throwing range?"

The older guard acknowledges the crowd's murmured laughter with a roll of his shoulders. "This is ridiculous," he says, in exasperation and amusement.

"I know," Malik says. "Really stupid, huh?"

"Be quiet, boy. Where are you finding all these rocks?"

"You told me to be quiet," Malik says, with not a little smugness.

"Ridiculous," the younger guard mutters. He presses his gloved hand back against the side of his head. "Nearly brained by a little kid."

"Practice more," his brother—apparently—says evenly, "or else don't complain. No one's fault but your own if you can be bested by a child." Raising his voice to be heard over the answering grumble, he turns back to Malik. "Your aim is impressive for a no-name beggar boy," he says. "Where were you trained?"

"Don't know what you're talking about. I was just keeping him away from my brother."

A thin smile. "You're your brother's keeper, are you?"

'"Course he is," Kadar says, as if this should be obvious. "He's _Malik_."

"Either way. You'll need to come with us now, the both of you."

"No. We didn't do anything."

"Are you going to stand here throwing rocks all day and night? You should obey your elders, boy. This isn't a request."

"Don't care. We're not _thieves_."

The guard's amusement fades to a narrow-eyed impatience. "Listen, boy—"

"What's going on? You're _asking_ them to obey you?"

The new voice that cuts through the din has an instant respect, though it wavers oddly between pitches. The crowd grows respectfully still and moves further back, but Malik notices the guards both stiffen, ever-so-slightly. He turns around, expecting either a religious scholar or a soldier rippling muscles, trying and failing to attach that young voice to either one.

He turns around, sees the speaker, and is instantly bewildered.

"You sound more like nursemaids than assassins," scoffs the—the child? Because the newcomer doesn't look any older than Malik; if anything he looks younger, because he has none of Malik's starveling edge. Muscle over sharp edges, eyes bright not with hunger but confident health. He's wearing the same clothing as the guards, tunic layered over breeches, though his are a full grey and he lacks a sword: a child playing in his father's clothing. His cowl is loose about his shoulders, and his hair is a light, sun-streaked brown. His skin is lighter too, almost _Christian_ in its whiteness. But, Malik supposes, that speaks more for his having a roof over his head than anything else. He would of course be fairer skinned than someone who's been wandering in the desert for weeks on end.

The boy tosses his head, hands on hips, and Malik can't help but picture a strutting rooster in all that arrogance. "They're just a couple of beggar brats," he says with a mean roll of his gold-brown eyes. "Pathetic to have so much trouble with them."

Malik is ready to laugh, and doesn't only when he sees that no one else seems to find the situation funny. Quite the opposite, actually—the two guards are both standing with backs straight and shoulders squared in...politeness? deference? deference to a boy Malik's age?

"Altair," the older guard says, frowning. "What are you doing here?"

"What business of that is yours?"

The frown deepens. "Watch your mouth. You don't outrank—"

"But I beat you in the training ring last week," the boy says, so breezy and so brash that Malik sort of wants to hit him.

"This doesn't concern you, Altair," the younger guard breaks in. Malik wonders, does he sound nervous? Can that possibly be right? "Just a couple kids throwing stones. Nothing for you to do here."

"I thought," Altair says, "that Al Mualim might be interested. I think he still might be interested. Assassins who can't handle a couple of _children_ stealing food?"

The guards both go silent and wary at the unfamiliar name, but Malik has had enough. Assassins? Training rings? One good rock could knock this _child_ flat! With hands clenched against his hips to mirror this interloper he glares with growing irritation. "We didn't steal anything. And anyway, no one asked you!"

Altair smirks. Even his teeth are white and straight, which somehow makes him more annoying. "You keep quiet until someone tells you to speak, urchin."

"Why should I take any orders from you?"

"Because I'm an assassin," Altair says, in the same tone one might use to clarify the sky's being blue. "In this village you show the Brotherhood respect."

"How can you be an assassin?" Malik isn't entirely sure what it is assassins do, but he knows it involves daggers and secret missions and people _twice this brat's age_. "You can't be an assassin if you're, like, as old as I am."

"Does being a dumb beggar also make you blind? I'm way older than you are."

"Mm…what do you think, Kadar? Think he's nine?"

Kadar peeks out from behind Malik's shoulder. "Maybe nine and a half," he decides.

Altair's eyes flash. "I'm older than both of you," he growls.

"Really?" Malik growls back. "Because I'm ten."

There is a pause that sparks with tension. The two boys glare at each other, and for a moment the whole world seems to be holding its breath.

"I," hisses Altair at long last, "am ten and a _half_."

"Liar."

"I'm not lying. You're the liar, stealing food you don't deserve."

"I didn't steal anything!"

"That's what beggars do. They steal stuff."

"Stop _calling_ me a beggar."

"Don't have to if I don't want to. Everything is permitted."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you're a beggar and no one wants you here."

"So fine, we'll leave. Wouldn't want to stay in any village with people like you in it."

"Assassins like me, you mean."

"Oh, sure." Malik snickers. " _Assassins_. Just 'cause you pick off your lice before you go to bed doesn't make you a…"

"Shut up," the boy rages, a sudden fire blazing in his eyes. "You're the filthy beggar boy, not me. Is that why you're here? Did your parents make you leave 'cause you're so dirty and worthless?"

"Malik isn't worthless," Kadar protests. "He got us through the whole desert!"

"Fine," says Altair, narrowing his eyes at the younger boy with evident dislike. "Then he's dirty and _you're_ worthless. Worthless little nobody—"

Malik lunges.

His first punch catches Altair by surprise, but the other boy's reflexes are startlingly fast; he dodges the second with ease. He throws his own punch, and because Malik isn't as quick it gets him hard in the chest. He gags and nearly loses his balance, to the sound of the guards' shouting and Kadar's startled gasp. Altair darts forward for another punch, and lands it—and lands his next one too, and it's then that Malik (who can barely think for the ringing in his head and the throbbing in his gut) decides not to stand there like a frozen target and hurtles himself downwards, grabbing at Altair's knees.

The older boy's arms wobble in his desperate attempt to stay steady, but Malik grabs him by those grey robes and yanks. Next thing he knows there's an elbow cracking against his jaw, and he falls flat onto the ground with pinpricks of light erupting in front of his eyes. Altair gets back to his feet and readjusts his robes. "Stupid," he scoffs. "You can't defeat me."

Malik drags his aching body upright. The ringing in his ears has transformed into a lightness in his head, and dimly he wishes he'd had the chance to eat at least one cucumber before all this. Altair shakes out his right fist and starts to throw another punch—but stops for some reason, with a furtive glance over his shoulder at the guards. Out of worry? No, Malik realizes as the boy relaxes his fist and pulls his arms into an odd sort of stance. Not out of worry, but because he wanted to copy how a soldier must wield his sword.

 _Idiot_ , Malik thinks, _It's not like he has one…_

But Altair holds this strange position. "You're untrained," he says with another toss of his head. His hands are protecting his chest, but his smirking face is wide open. "I don't even have to try. You haven't learned anything about fighting."

Malik, who knows neither stance nor style, shrugs and runs forward, clawing at Altair's exposed face with gleeful abandon. The other boy yowls in surprise and pain—dropping his stance in the process—but even then he doesn't let himself be distracted. Instead he grabs a fistful of Malik's hair and tugs. Malik claws at him again, someone trips someone else, and the two boys fall over in a thrashing, tangled mass of limbs and indignation.

"Not— _fair_!" Altair screeches, one arm drawn over his face to protect his eyes. "There's no honor in going for the face!"

"You said everything was permitted," pants Malik, trying to pull his hair free before it can be ripped from his head.

"Don't quote the Creed! Outsiders aren't allowed to say it!"

"Oh, shut up. Get off my hair!"

"Get off of me first!"

"How am I supposed to get off you when you've got your hand stuck in my hair? I can't move without you pulling the top of my head off."

"Stupid novice questions."

"You're the— _eurgh_ —novice."

"You don't even know what a novice _is_."

"I know you are one!"

"Idiot. Quit trying to blind me-…"

Suddenly, in the midst of all the chaos, Malik finds himself getting to his feet—being lifted to his feet by the pressure of a firm hand on the back of his tunic, dragging him free from Altair. But even once he's standing again the hand does not leave, and trying to tug free accomplishes nothing. He glances in front of him, breathing hard, and sees that Altair is being held in much the same way by the same person. The two boys glower at each other, and Malik is pleased to note that while his own chest has become a mass of bruises and his head throbs, Altair's face is scratched a vivid red in several places, and his left eye is already swollen half-shut. Both their tunics are torn and filthy, but Malik's were torn and filthy as it was; Altair's looked clean and new. Ruining them definitely counts as victory.

Internal gloating accomplished, Malik cranes his head over his shoulder to see his captor's face. At first all he can see is the wiry brown beard, cropped close to a square chin. He drags his eyes upwards, blinks to see only one eye meet his gaze. The other, foggy-white, has been claimed by a scar that rips its way from eyebrow to cheek.

The newcomer's one-eyed gaze is too unreadable, too _mystical_ , to meet—as if he were a famous holy man, or Malik's father. So instead Malik looks downwards, sees great, billowing robes of a rich black-blue. They open to reveal white robes not unlike those worn by so many of this village's people, but these have clearly been made with significant skill and attention to detail. Red silk lines the cuffs and collar, and pours out from underneath a massive leather belt. The sleeves of the black robes are similarly adorned with white. Even the man's cowl is decorated at the edges.

Malik tries again to pull free from this mysterious man's iron grip, but can't. Altair, he notes, isn't squirming but standing still, scowling all the while.

"How strange," the man says, in a voice deep and aged, a voice that pronounces each word with care, a voice well-educated and well-spoken. "How strange to see such trouble break out here, in Al-Masyaf."

The crowd, Malik notices, has dissolved. People rush about them, nervous or embarrassed at being caught staring. The two guards are both rigid, eyes respectfully downcast. _Is this man their general_? Malik wonders. _Is he their king?_

"I was coming to tell you, Master," Altair says, speaking carefully around a split lower lip. "These thieves were upsetting the merchants."

The man sighs before Malik can protest. "Yes, Altair, I've heard the story already," he says sternly. "And I expected my men to be well-enough trained that they could deal with such a minor situation."

"Master Al Mualim," the older of the guards begins, hesitantly and without looking up, "your pardon. Things grew out of our control."

"Always we must strive for control," their master agrees. "And we must prepare ourselves for that which we do not expect." He turns an appraising eye on Altair, who is still sulking but is also trying to look dutiful by gazing towards the ground. "I did not expect to see my best novice rolling around on the ground like a child throwing a tantrum," he adds, and even Malik has to wince at the tone: not angry, not frightening, but _disappointed_ , which is so much worse. Altair fights his expression into something neutral, though not before Malik spots the hurt flicker quickly through his eyes.

But rather than apologize or keep silent, Altair decides to argue. "These nobodies started the trouble. The older one attacked me, and he did not fight with honor but cowardice—"

"Ah, your excuses, boy…we will wean you from them yet! Why should you be surprised if your opponent does not fight fair? Has he been trained alongside you? Has he been taught the same notions of honor? Your lessons are meant for _you_ to absorb, Altair. They are not burdens for you to thrust upon others."

Malik watches the hurt flicker again as Altair's shoulders slump. For no reason at all, he feels a twang of sympathy.

Al Mualim looks down at Malik now. "And who is this other child who would behave with such poor manners?" he asks, gentler now that his lecture is done. "This would-be thief?"

"Not a thief," Malik mutters. "Keep telling everyone that. Someone _gave_ us those coins and we got cheated out of a cucumber already."

"Where are you from? I know everyone here, but I've never seen you about."

Malik hesitates. "…Dunno," he admits finally. "Far. Across the desert. We're going to Damascus," he adds, "so I can find work." He glances across the way to a nervous Kadar, and realizes that more soldiers, silent ones, have crept up while he was fighting to flank his brother on either side. This master's personal men, perhaps. "Leave him alone," he says in warning.

"You're quick to protect your brother," says Al Mualim. "Is there a reason why?"

Malik blinks. What kind of question is that for an educated man to ask? "He's my _brother_. I have to watch him."

"Indeed." Al Mualim smiles. "A heavy burden for one so young."

"Malik's ten," Kadar says. "That's adult."

"Do your parents say as much?" Malik frowns, doesn't answer. Al Mualim, whoever he is, grows more thoughtful. "Are they why you've left your home so far behind?"

Malik drags his gaze back to Kadar. Something in him twists, and twists hard. He feels the scream, the scream that's been lurking all these weeks, scratching at his throat, wanting air, wanting _out_.

But he will not cry. He will not be weak in front of all these strangers.

"They're dead," he says. "Christian soldiers killed them."

"It was Templars," Kadar says, and the guards all seem to look at him with just a little more interest. "They came and burned our house. And my good tunic," he adds, quiet and sad.

Malik's stomach twists again at the sight of his brother looking so miserable. "Let me go," he hisses to the bearded stranger holding him, squirming afresh. "Leave us alone."

Al Mualim releases his grip of iron. Malik staggers forward, steadies himself, and adjusts his tunic with such severity he wants to roll his eyes at himself. What dignity is this? He could fix his clothing all day—it won't change the fact that he is dirty, skinny, probably stinking. A stinking beggar, surrounded by men who want either to kill him or give him pity.

He turns back to Kadar, opens his arms and lets his little brother cling to him. "It's all right," he says. "We're going now." He glares at Al Mualim. "Away from all these _thieves_."

"But I dropped the cucumber you gave me," Kadar whispers. "Sorry, Brother."

"It's ok. I've still got one, and the onion. You can eat that."

"Don't you want some, though?"

"Me?" Malik shrugs. His chest, his head, his hands…every bit of him aches in heavy throbs. But as much pain as he's in, he isn't hungry. His stomach has once again given up its ravenous edge. A good thing, Malik assumes. Maybe he's adapting to only occasional meals. "You can eat it all," he says, feeling eyes plastered to his back and wondering when the onion lost its taunting smell. "I'm not really hungry."

But this is more than Altair, forgotten and surly in the background, can apparently stand. "Of _course_ you're hungry," he protests. "Even your scrawny brother must weigh more than you—"

"Be silent, Altair." Al Mualim frowns at him until he shrinks back, then turns to face Malik. His mismatched eyes scan his face, and Malik has to hide a small shiver: it's so unnerving, having that sightless grey orb look him up and down. It's almost as if it still, on some hidden level, has sight…

"Your name is Malik?" The master waits for the nod before continuing, "Allow me, if I may, to ask…does Damascus have any particular significance for you?"

 _Sky-scraping towers,_ Malik wants to say. Instead he says only, "There's work there. And schools for Kadar."

"And you've no training in combat whatsoever? You've never practiced your aim?"

Malik shrugs.

"You held your own against two of my assassins, and one of my novices," Al Mualim muses aloud. _You did none of that_ , Altair's expression glares. "Well, Malik. Let me ask you one more question, strange though it may be: what are your desires in life? What are your goals?"

"To protect Kadar," he answers without hesitation, without debate. "And to kill the bastard Templars who hurt my family."

Al Mualim smiles, revealing nothing though on the surface he looks proud. "In that case," he says, "I would like to suggest you stay here in Masyaf, instead. Stay here and join the Brotherhood. I would be honored to accept such dedicated and determined recruits."

The guards look surprised. The soldiers flanking Kadar shift in place. But out of all of them it is Altair whose mouth drops open in disbelief. "But—Master!" he protests. "He's just another orphan. He's not worthy of your teaching!"

"Were you worthy, when your parents brought you here?" Al Mualim has had enough. He silences the older boy with a look that could crack stone. The scarred eye follows its working brother after a second's delay. "Truly none of us are deserving of what we are given. It is through learning and effort that we repay our good fortunes."

Malik is unruffled by Altair's protestations. He rubs a grimy hand against a pounding headache and tries to think. "What Brotherhood?" he asks. "What do you mean?"

"The Assassin's Brotherhood. We protect this village and the surrounding lands: my men, and I as their leader. We work to save this world from any who might seek to destroy it."

"Like the Templars?"

"Them above all others." Al Mualim folds his arms across his chest, tucking his hands into his wide sleeves. "I can offer you a protected haven here: shelter, food, clothing. You will be taught to fight, to spy, to _understand_. You will gain my wisdom, learn from the most important of texts and scrolls." He lowers his voice, speaks softly, living eye burning with some eternal spark. "And when you are ready, you will kill Templars. Until then I will keep you safe."

Malik looks at him, amazed. What is this? Can he of all people be an _assassin_? Learn to kill? Is it this place, not Damascus, that has his future ensnared in its grasp?

He looks down at his little brother, still reeling. "My brother," he says after a moment. "What about him?"

"There is room enough in the Brotherhood for two new novices," Al Mualim replies, and Altair's scowl, if anything, deepens. "Such earthshaking loyalty should be rewarded, not split apart."

Malik rubs his head harder, but the shock at this strange day hasn't faded yet. If anything it's gotten stronger: it's become a grey cloud hovering in front of his eyes to match the looming storm, a pounding beat in his ears. "You'll teach Kadar to fight," he manages. "Teach him to protect himself."

Al Mualim nods. "I will."

"Then…" Malik feels dizzy. What a day this is! "Then I'll join. We both will."

Kadar breathes, "We're gonna learn to kill Templars? And wolves too?"

"And them too. And we'll stick together." As if in demonstration Malik's lips stick together. He totters on his feet trying to force out the words.

"Master, I do not understand." This from Altair-who's-ten-and-a-half, clearly frustrated. His words reach Malik from a sprawling distance, desert-wide. "How can he be made an assassin? He doesn't look strong enough to _stand_."

 _Not fair_ , Malik tries to say. _I'm standing. This is all so weird that I can't catch my breath._

"No…he doesn't." The Master's voice takes on a sudden frowning edge. From the world's growing darkness he demands, "When did you eat last?"

 _Who, me?_ Malik turns on his feet, hears Kadar gasp out his name, swipes his hands at the buzzing fog. _I just ate. A day or two ago. Not hungry, really, I mean it this time. Stopped being hungry so just give it to Kadar._

He turns on his feet again, loses his balance, feels the fog rush up to swallow him at last. He fights it for a minute, but there's no strength left in his thrashes, and when the blackness begins boiling about his body he can do nothing but watch it come.


End file.
